Treatment
by Brighid45
Summary: The first story in the Treatment series. House has committed himself to Mayfield. Will he find healing there? And if so, can he accept it? AU to the canon S6 storyline. Angst, humor and eventual OC romance a ways down the road. Please R&R, thanks!
1. Chapter 1

May 27th

He sits by the window and watches the rain fall. It is early evening. The soft pearly light leaches away, drop by drop. There is some comfort in knowing the processes of life continue apace. There is terror in that knowledge too.

His sentinels wait in silence. They have stayed at his side through the initial evaluation, the medically induced coma (at least he presumes they were there) and consequent supervised detox, his first therapy session. They regard him with somber expressions, though Amber still has a bit of her usual cat-in-the-cream smirk. No point in telling them to go away; he might as well talk to the pain in his butchered thigh. He rubs his scar with an absent gesture and feels a familiar stab of fear at what's ahead. The doctors have his medical records, they know all the technical details of his infarction and consequent surgery. What they can't know is how endless the pain is, and how much worse it becomes without the Vicodin to mute the incessant keening. He's seen the condescending smiles, the pitying glances when he tells them a good day is a five on the zero-ten scale. They've already labeled him a drug seeker, an addict looking for any excuse to get stoned.

"Well, aren't you?" Amber asks, her tone reasonable. "Isn't that why he--" she gestures at the silent Kutner, "--and I are here?"

"Fuck off," he says, and turns his gaze to the window once more. Amber laughs but says nothing in reply. He knows she is watching him, her mouth curved in a knowing smile. _Wonder if she wears the same makeup as Cuddy_, he thinks, and remembers the brush of soft, full lips over his collarbone.

_(She is tangled in the sheets by then, smiling up at him with a tender, wistful expression. Her hand rubs his back, a slow, comforting movement. "Let's do that again," Cuddy's phantom says. "But not right now. Right now let's just . . ." She presses a kiss to his chest, above his heart. "Let's just rest," she says against his flesh.)_

The words vibrate through his frame. He pushes them away along with the false memory and stares out at the rain. _If I rest, if I give in, I lose it all,_ he thinks, and feels the fear creep closer. _Just like juggling--you hesitate, the chainsaws fall._ He frowns a little; somehow that analogy sounds familiar.

"You used it during a case," Amber says. He cases his mind back, riffling through sessions like pages in a notebook, but nothing turns up.

"Uh oh." There is sly triumph in Amber's voice. "Better check out now." She leans forward. "Before they take it all away from you."

"That makes no sense," he says aloud before he can stop himself. "I'm here--"

"You're here because you think it's what you're supposed to do. You'll end up playing games with everyone until boredom sets in." Amber sits back, her eyes bright with challenge. "I give you three more days before you either walk out or find another way to escape." She snaps her fingers. The sound is loud in the quiet room, like a gunshot. "I know! Call Wilson. He'll take you home."

He watches the rain and resists the pointless urge to clamp his hands over his ears. _I'm staying, _he thinks, and winces at the raw desperation in that simple thought. _I have to stay. What else is there?_

"You've still got most of your stash at home," Amber says. She is sitting right next to him now, her lips touching his ear. "Go back to work. Get rid of the team, you don't need them. You've got me. You're world-famous. You'll never run out of patients. There'll always be someone to write a scrip for you--"

He feels a presence standing next to him. Amber stops talking, her expression sulky. He doesn't have to look to know it's Kutner. The spectre's silence is a warning, and a reminder. Pain fills his mind for a moment--endless, burning, the entirety of existence--and then he is empty again.

"Greg?" The nurse passing meds pauses in the doorway, a little paper cup in one hand, water pitcher in the other. "The doctor wants you on a sleeping pill tonight." She holds out the cup. He knows this, even though he isn't looking at her, because she visits him three times a day and follows the same procedure each time. There's a pain med in the cup too, but it isn't Vicodin and it doesn't help. Still, he takes it because anything is better than nothing, and maybe tonight he'll sleep and not wake in a pool of sweat, fighting his way out of some impenetrable maze of agony.

Eventually twilight gives way to night, and the sound of rain falling on soft grass.


	2. Chapter 2

June 5th

He sits with his back pressed into the corner, arms resting on his knees, head resting on his arms. The observation room is stark and spare, with bland gray walls. He digs his toes into the navy blue carpet and feels the sharp swell of pain in his thigh. He has been here for two days now since recovering from his overdose. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not an attempt at suicide. He hasn't come here just to wipe himself out of existence.

"Sure about that?" Amber asks. She is sitting directly opposite him. "Saving up Lortabs without hiding a slice of bread to take with them . . . pretty stupid."

He ignores her and remembers the first wave of relief, the familiar release of clenched muscles, the loosening of his breath.

"Yeah, and then they pumped your stomach." Amber rolls her eyes. "Drama queen."

He looks around the room. _Am I reduced to this? To nothing but blank walls and empty space? Will I be here for good? _The thought is not new, but it holds the same terror as it did when he first had it. He pushes the knowledge away and wonders what his team is doing right now. Coming back from lunch, most likely; ordering tests, scheduling appointments with specialists--everything he had once found irksome and clumsy, a hindrance to his process. Now he would give anything to have it all back.

But he isn't going to have it back, not anytime soon. Everything he was, everything he had, it's all sunk in quicksand. The only firm ground left is this place, a chop shop where people are taken apart to be put back together again in ways that made them more acceptable to society. Here he is stripped to essentials--he is only Greg, a man with a broken mind and nothing more.

"How the mighty have fallen!" Amber laughs. "The medical world's greatest diagnostician, wallowing in self-pity and longing to return to minutiae." She savors the word, draws it out. "You and I know what you would sell your soul for." She holds up a small white caplet. He sees it, can't help but see it. He tightens his fingers to keep from reaching out. Amber laughs again.

"It's amazing, the power a chemical can wield over a human being," she says softly. "People are nothing but skins of filthy seawater with sticks poked inside to keep them upright, make them mobile, and yet they all think they're simply glorious creatures. But put one of these inside them . . . " She wiggles the caplet. "A single drop of poison makes you feel sooooo good. You're pathetic."

"Go away," he says out loud, and closes his eyes. Her soft, malicious amusement fills the room that is now his kingdom, his exile, his prison, his crooked sanctuary. He loathes it and at the same time he wishes he could draw it close around him, a shell for a puddle of seawater in need of protection.


	3. Chapter 3

July 17th

Doctor Goldman sits at her desk, frowning over a case file. He looks at the engravings hung in a neat row on the wall behind her, then at the doctor herself. She is small, slender, sporting auburn curls and the pale, creamy skin of the natural redhead. Her suit is a bland gray two piece with a white blouse--office camouflage, though somehow she doesn't seem the type to hide behind bland colors and conventional fashions. He has maintained complete silence for the last five sessions. Much to his chagrin and interest, so has she. She hasn't tried to talk to him, at him, with him; no questions, lectures, pleas, rants. In their first session she sat quietly, waiting. When nothing happened after half an hour, she took a file from the stack on her desk and began reading.

_She's playing me,_ he thinks. _Just like the others they've sent in._ And that is the biggest problem he has encountered during his stay--he can run rings around any doctor in the place. He's smarter than all of them, knows the literature, the language, the processes. It makes it impossible for anyone to help him, because he can't turn off his mind. And yet even if he could, it would utterly defeat the entire purpose of his being here.

"You don't need this," Amber says. She is sitting on the doctor's desk, looking bored and resentful. "You're wasting your time here, and you know it. So does she." She leans over to glance at the case file. "She's using your sessions to catch up on her paperwork. Are you gonna put up with that? Call Wilson. Tell him you're ready to leave."

He stares at his feet, his gaze following the stitched pattern on his left sneaker. This is a favorite old pair, broken in and comfortable despite the lack of laces. Wilson suggested he bring them, had said "You might need a little comfort now and then." His tone had been carefully neutral, but the worry was there all the same. It induces guilt, just as Wilson had probably intended. His friend had brought him here to help him get better; silence is self-defeating. He draws in a deep breath, lets it out, gathers his courage. He's not sure what will come out of his mouth, but he has to try to make sense, to do something before he goes . . . well, insaner. If that's even a word.

"I had a dream last night." He hears himself speak aloud; he wishes he could take the words back, they sound ridiculous. Doctor Goldman looks up from her file with an expression of mild interest. He waits for her to say something but she just keeps looking at him, her eyebrows raised a little now. To his horror more words tumble out. "We were moving furniture. Hot day, big heavy pieces."

She stays silent for a few moments. "'We'?" she says.

"I'm just telling you in case you need something to put in the session notes. You know, significant symbolism and all that," he says, and winces inside because now he is babbling and can't seem to stop. "I'm sure you'll find all kinds of repressed urges, which is weird because I don't really repress anything."

She is still looking at him, her expression wry. He drops his gaze to his hands. "There was an old black woman," he says. "She was small, but she lifted a sofa as if it was weightless." He walks through the sequence of images, pulls out details. "We took a chair down to the basement," he says. "It was dark. There was a coal chute--haven't seen one of those since I was a kid. She showed me something, a loose board. She moved it with her hand. There were broken braces under the floor." He stops, having run out of dream. "Then I woke up."

The doctor sits back, file in hand. For a long moment she is still, her gaze resting on him--measuring him, he realizes. Looking for deception. Then she stands and goes to the door, calls an orderly. He is cursing himself for giving her a chance to break him when she says "Go sit outside for the rest of the session, Greg. It's a nice day." Her words hold a faint accent, a soft twang he is fairly sure indicates she's from the Plains--somewhere south of Nebraska but not Texas. Kansas, or more likely Oklahoma. He gets to his feet.

"A treat for the performing poodle," he says. Humiliation rises in his throat like bile. "What happens if I pee on your rug?"

"Enjoy the sunshine," she says, and offers a smile. To his surprise it is genuine. "Wish I could join you."

As the orderly escorts him out of the office and to the yard, he ponders her responses. He knows everything he says and does is recorded carefully in her case notes. But he can't be sure of her intentions because he can't read her, at least not yet, and that is at once worrisome and oddly freeing.

She's right though, it is a beautiful summer day, hot and sunny with a cool breeze in the shade. The air is laden with the scent of green growing things and a hint of cigarettes from the staff's illicit smoke breaks. He feels the earth beneath his feet and wonders why it isn't shifting, full of fissures and fire. With a sigh he sits on a picnic table and watches the trees toss their deep shadows over the grassy lawn.

"You've let the cat out of the bag now," Amber whispers. "She's going to expect you to talk at every session. We can't have that now, can we?"

Sunlight flickers through the leaves as he tries hard to think of nothing at all.


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Thanks to K for giving me the twist on 'horse whisperer'. I wrote this long before the promos for S6 came out--honest!  
_  
August 7th

He wakes with a gasp and finds he is sitting straight up, sweat pouring down his back, hands out as if to push someone or something away. The dream fades even as he tries to recall it—it's about his father, but he cannot make it come into focus. Slowly he lowers his arms and wipes the sweat from his face, gets out of bed and goes to the window. Outside it's hot and miserably sultry. He can feel heat throbbing through the walls. The orderlies complain about it when they come back from their breaks; the new nurses at change of shift look wilted. Still, he'd rather be out there than in here.

_It's been a filthy bitch of a day_, he thinks. Wilson had come to visit and they'd fought, a nasty sparring match that sent his friend away in a hot, seething silence. At the time it had felt good, even great. He still had the power to make someone else dance to his tune. Now he knows it for what it was--a petty and small-minded act designed to hurt someone who genuinely cares for him. _If I learned anything from Dad it's how to screw with people_, he thinks. The only person he cannot manipulate is Doctor Goldman (or as he calls her, the House Whisperer). Before Wilson's visit he'd wasted a noisy therapy session hurling little sharp stones of gratuitous cruelty, sarcasm and bullying behavior, all designed to get a reaction. And yet he was the one who had ended up in pieces while she watched him with the cool, imperturbable stare he has grown to detest. At the end of the hour she'd left in silence. He couldn't tell if she was angry, upset, disgusted, terrified, or just plain bored. Her refusal to engage spurred him to greater excesses in the ward. Now he's locked up in an observation room for the next twenty-four hours. It's a place with rounded corners, no loose items and one tiny window of thick plexiglass reinforced with chicken wire. Everyone else is in the common room watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, this week's special-treat movie. At least he's been spared that torment.

He presses his forehead to the glass, but there is no cool relief. The night is dark and restless; he can hear leaves rustling, a faint dry susurrus. Heat lightning flickers in the distance. As he stands there a fragment of dream slides into his mind.

_(It is night here too, but a cold and windy one that heralds the approach of winter. He burrows his naked body deeper into the big pile of leaves at the base of the oak tree and turns his face away from the warm yellow light spilling out of the second floor bedroom window. The light is on for a reason. It is his father's way of driving home the point. His mother is nowhere to be seen, but he knows she is standing guard all the same though she can do nothing to help him._

_And then suddenly the leaves are gone and he lies on the withered grass, the starved stalks prickly against his bare skin. But the icy wind no longer bites at him. Now it is hot and the air is thick with stagnant humidity. He struggles to sit up. It is pitch black; not even the indifferent stars keep him company. Fear jolts through him when he realizes the light is gone too. He is completely alone. No one sees him, no one guards him and equally, there's nobody punishing him. Somehow that last fact is just as terrifying as the preceding ones. He can hear his own breath laboring in and out of his lungs, and that is all. He reaches out to grasp something, anything; his body tilts forward and starts to fall--)_

He makes an inarticulate sound and clutches the window frame. A thin film of fog appears on the thick pane, slowly dissipates. He closes his eyes against hot tears trembling under his lids. If he lets them go they will never stop.

"Seawater," Amber whispers behind him. "An ocean of self-pity and cowardice just dying to leak out all over everything, that's what you are."

_Someone_, he cries out inside, _someone come in here! _Amber chuckles.

"I'm here, aren't I?" She pats his shoulder, her pale eyes twinkling with mock concern. "You've always known you'd end up this way." Her words burn like brands. "No one will ever be there. You're too busy pushing them away. And anyway, what does it matter? You've got me."

"SHUT UP!" he shouts. "Get out, dammit! Leave me alone!" Above Amber's delighted laughter, in an agony of fury and despair he hammers at the window, knowing it will bring the orderlies.

They are fastening the restraints when he says "Get Wilson."

"No one's coming tonight," the charge nurse says. She looks tired and pissed off. Some part of him knows it's because she's forced to take care of him herself when she's got a full night's worth of paperwork waiting for her, but her voice is calm and rational all the same. "Come on, Greg. Settle down. Let me give you the shot. You know it'll help."

"Wilson," he says again as the needle goes in. "Let me call him . . ." He feels the empty darkness waiting just beyond the circle of light above the bed, and it terrifies him past all reason. He tugs at the restraints. "_Please_," he whispers, reduced at last to begging.

"In the morning." the charge nurse says with weary patience. She takes his pulse, her touch light and impersonal. The Ativan is pushing through him, stealing away his consciousness. He struggles to fight, but it's a hopeless cause.

Still, when she reaches to turn off the light he says "No--leave it on!" He cannot keep the panic out of his voice and hates the weakness it reveals. She hesitates, then takes her hand from the switch. He sees a reluctant pity in her glance and loathes her for it, even as relief moves over him in a sluggish wave.

"You want some water?" she is asking. He shakes his head, though he is dry with thirst. She nods and walks to the door. He can't help but watch her, knowing that even if she stays he'll still be alone. It is his last thought before the drug pulls him down.


	5. Chapter 5

_**In this chapter, the passage Cuddy reads is taken from the novel **__**Jane Eyre**__**, by Charlotte Bronte.**_

August 11th

___T_he restaurant was everything Cuddy had known it would be, since Wilson had chosen it: upscale, discreet, efficient, and comfortable. It could have been a Parkway Mcdonald's for all she cared. She waited until the salads were served; then she spoke, trying hard for a casual air.

"How is he?" She speared some frisee with her fork.

"He's . . . he was in restraints when I saw him," Wilson said with reluctance.

"What?" she whispered, stunned. "He--he wasn't dangerous when he--" She stopped, unable to go on.

"Apparently he had some sort of panic attack, tried to break a window." Wilson looked away, but not before Cuddy saw the weary sorrow etched in his features.

"Oh god," she said softly. Her throat was tight. "Oh my _god_, Wilson."

"They have him sedated, but he's . . ." Wilson shook his head. "He's not there. He's disappeared inside himself. He told me once when his dad was really pounding him with punishments, he'd go deep in his head to escape. Silent running, he called it."

"We may never get him back." Cuddy scowled at the server hovering nearby, ice-water pitcher in hand. "Could we have a little privacy?" she snapped. Wilson gave the girl an apologetic look. Cuddy glared at him. No doubt he was planning to leave a hefty tip later to make up for her bitchiness. He might even get a phone number . . . She pushed the thought away as mean-spirited and brought her attention back to Wilson.

"Look," he was saying now in his best reassuring tone, "he's been through some tremendous upheavals over the last few years. The infarction, Stacy, Vogler, Stacy, Foreman, the shooting, Tritter. Being held hostage by a patient." He paused. "Amber."

All her anger died. She put her hand over his, an impulsive gesture. He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes. "And then Kutner," he went on. "House's emotions have always been brittle, for lack of a better word. Maybe with time he'll find a way to cope besides drugs and denial."

Cuddy abandoned all pretense at eating and pushed away her salad, untouched except for the leaf still impaled on her fork. "But what if he doesn't?" Her voice shook despite her best efforts. "What if he's broken and no one can help?"

"We can't think like that." Wilson said. His fingers moved under her touch to clasp her hand very gently. "He needs time to heal, to sort things out. You'll see. We'll get him back."

***

_She's just gone to bed after putting Rachel down for the night when someone knocks at her bedroom window--a quiet knock, so whoever it is must know she has a baby. Wilson is the most likely visitor, but why would he come back after spending the better part of his evening with her? And why show up at the window?_

_She mutters under her breath as she rises from the bed and moves the curtain aside. What she sees roots her to the spot with utter shock. Finally she unlocks the sash and pushes it up. House stands outside, backlit by the dim, ambient glow of distant streetlights. She stares at him, he stares at her. She leans forward, reaches out to touch him, lets her hand drop before she makes contact._

_"What are you doing here?" she asks, bewildered. He just watches her, his eyes shadowed, fathomless. "House?" she says, uncertain and a little scared now. "Greg?"_

_He is mute and motionless; only his eyes move, his haunted gaze traveling over her face as if he is trying to commit her image to memory. There is a desperate finality in this action that raises the little hairs on the back of her neck. And then he fades away until nothing is left but empty air._

She woke on a gasp. The room was quiet and dark. A glance at the clock told her only an hour had passed. She lay back and tried to make sense of the dream. It _had_ been a dream, hadn't it?

"Oh, get a grip, Cuddy," she said at last. Her voice was loud in the quiet room. "It sure wasn't your soulmate calling for you across the moors." With a sigh she punched her pillow into shape, then on impulse shifted position, turned on the lamp and opened the top drawer of the nightstand. She pushed aside a half-eaten block of chocolate to pull out the battered book tucked away in a corner. It was one of her very few guilty pleasures; she had owned several copies over the years, all read until they fell apart. She paged through the book slowly until she found the passage her dream had brought to mind.

_"Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own; in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait-waistcoat--your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me . . . In your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me: and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return, and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me."_

How unbearably maudlin and yet deeply painful was it to read those words and hear them echo within her own heart and mind! She closed her eyes on tears just as Rachel let out a gusty wail. Relief flooded through her, with guilt close behind. Sleep was over for now, but she didn't really care. She slipped the book into its hiding place and turned her back on the empty, silent bedroom.


	6. Chapter 6

August 21st

The session starts with him entering the room to find the House Whisperer already at her desk, waiting for him. He slouches in his chair, feeling (as he usually does) like an eight-year-old caught smoking in the bathroom and sent to the principal's office. She watches him for a moment, then takes something out of the top drawer. It's a composition book, the kind with the mottled black-and-white pasteboard cover he remembers from his high school days. She walks around the desk to stand before him and offers the book. He takes it, more from reflex than a desire to accommodate her. "What's this for?" he asks. His voice is hoarse from disuse.

"What do you think it's for?" Amber says. She perches on the corner of the desk, her expression one of derision. "She wants to get into your braaaaain."

"I'd like you to keep a journal," Doctor Goldman says in her quiet way. She has returned to her seat and looks the same as always, cool and impassive. "It's your choice. If you decide to try it you're free to use whatever medium appeals to you--writing, drawing, and so on."

Amber leans forward, her tone one of mock solemnity. "She wants information . . . information . . . INFORMATION!"

He can't quite stop the laugh Amber's comment generates, though he turns it into a snort. "So now I have to keep a fucking _diary_?" He examines the notebook with exaggerated care. "No pink vinyl cover, no little brass key. Damn." Doctor Goldman gives him a slight smile. She has a dimple by the corner of her mouth that disappears when the smile fades.

"Anything you write will be private, unless you choose to share it," she says. He gives her an incredulous look.

"Yeaaah," he says, drawing out the word to show his opinion of her pathetic attempt at deception.

"I'll admit I'd like to read whatever you have to say, but coercion is not and never will be a part of my practice." Her eyes darken as she speaks. He catches a glimpse of pain, some private sorrow she can't quite hide, and files it away as potentially useful information. "At any rate, it's up to you. If you accept, you'll have two hours a day to yourself in the OT room. I'll make sure you have pens, pencils, markers, whatever you prefer. You can use the media in the painting area if you like as well." She pauses. "Give it some thought."

"Getting desperate?" He leans back. "Uh-uh. No way." He is puzzled by this easy capitulation until comprehension dawns. He acts on it swiftly, barely missing a beat. "Not unless you keep a journal too. Then we trade."

She watches him for a few moments, her gaze speculative. "You show me yours, I'll show you mine." Again the dimple flashes when she smiles. "Deal."

He is careful to hide his smirk of triumph. Oh, she's a smart one. She'd known he would refuse at first, would counter with something to trump her offer; his idea gets her what she wants without making her look like Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS. And she can say anything she likes in her own journal, thus gaining her objective with no cost to herself. But he's smarter than she is. He's pretty sure she's naive enough to be at least a little honest with him--nothing works like a lie with a grain of truth at its core--and that will give him immense leverage in future sessions, because he can pick truth out of lies like lima beans in vegetable soup. He's made his decision, but decides to play-act a little longer just to keep her from getting suspicious. "If I agree, we work on them concurrently," he counters. "That way you can't rip off my stuff."

She doesn't say yes right away. She considers it, to his surprise. His interest sharpens. What could make her hesitate? He studies her for the thousandth time. Her eyes are a bit deep-set, a luminous grey with just a hint of green. There's a little scar above the bridge of her nose, a faint line through her left eyebrow. _Battered_, he thinks. _Someone worked her over. Wow, obvious career choice, trying to fix people when you're a mess yourself. _Will she write about it? He isn't sure. She can be a tough one to read, her body language cautious, guarded.

"Okay," she says at last. "We both work on a journal, two hours a day for two weeks. But at the end of that time I read yours first, if you agree to it. If I find out you've been BSing me, you don't get to read mine."

"That's not fair!" he says, pretending shock.

"Take it or leave it," she says in her calm way. "My entries will be truthful. I want the same in kind or this is just a circle jerk."

"It's a trap," Amber says, and leans in toward him, her voice tight with urgency. "You think you've got her figured out. You don't."

He eyes the notebook. He should be able to pull off a good fake and earn some brownie points that will get him released a little quicker. Besides, she's thrown down the gauntlet and dared him to lie to her without letting on he's doing it; how can he resist? "If I read yours and it's BS, I get another doctor," he says. Again Doctor Goldman thinks about what he's said.

"Done," she says at last. Amber rolls her eyes but says nothing.

"Fantastic," he says, and stands, wincing as his leg protests. "When can I start?"

**

The OT room is quiet for once; there's no one in it but him and the inevitable orderly. He gathers up his materials—a fine-point Sharpie pen, a few colored pencils—sits down at a table, and opens the notebook. The blank page stares back at him, waiting to be used. He rests his chin on his hand and chews a fingernail, searching for something to put on the paper.

Half an hour later the page is still blank and the orderly is dozing. He wipes a trickle of sweat from the back of his neck and toys with the Sharpie, frustrated and a little scared now, though he doesn't want to admit it. Acknowledging the fear leads to other things he won't think about at the moment, like the loss of his gift, the delusions, the sleepless nights wondering what on earth he'll do if he can't work.

"Not as easy as you thought it would be, huh? Told you this was a bad idea," Amber says. She is lying on the table on her back, one leg drawn up in a provocative display. "Now you're stuck writing this stupid journal." She rolls over, giving him an intense look. "So make it a prank. Make it a joke full of half-truths, but a joke she won't get, not at first. Maybe not at all." She smiles, a feral stretch of the lips. "Pick a theme. Then put it in code."

The idea is tempting. He looks at the page again, lets his mind fill it in. A moment later a smile curls the corners of his mouth. He picks up the pen and begins to write.


	7. Chapter 7

September 4th

It was some time after dinner when Sarah closed the study door behind her. She put her briefcase on the desk and popped it open, extracted House's journal, set it on the blotter. She stared at the battered cover and found herself prey to a number of emotions, none of which she wanted to examine too closely. After a few moments she pulled a chair to her, plunked into it, took a deep breath, and lifted the cover.

An hour later she got up and paced around the study. She had gone through the entire journal and found it very nearly incomprehensible--something she had expected, but not to this degree. That it was the work of a brilliant mind, she freely admitted. That she was locked out also was true, and something she had expected . . . but it was imperative she find the key. Simply by looking through the pages she knew her patient was telling her much more about himself than he realized, and that was why she had given this method a chance. It had been an act of utter desperation on her part--one that had had paid off, but now she would have to dig deep to get the gold out of the ground.

"And now I'm mixing my metaphors," she said under her breath. With a sigh she went to the sideboard, extracted a tumbler and a bottle of Glenfiddich. It wasn't often that she had more than a taste of wine in the evening, but tonight she felt something stronger was warranted. She swirled the whiskey in the glass and took a sip, savored the smoky-sweet burn on her tongue.

A soft knock at the door sent her to answer it. "Mind a little company?" Gene propped his lean frame against the jamb. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of the whiskey, but only said "I'll join you, if I may." She nodded and moved away to continue pacing. A few moments later soft music filled the room. Sarah smiled a little as Glenn Frey began to sing above the mellow jangle of twelve-strings and rhythm guitar. She turned to her husband and found him lounging in the shabby recliner by the stereo. He drank his whiskey in an absent manner, watching her with a slight smile. She walked to him and sat in his lap. "Thanks," she said, and offered a kiss.

"What's up?" he asked after a time. "I could hear you fulminating clear across the house."

"Can't tell you," she said. His smile widened.

"You mean Greg House," he said. She groaned.

"_Shit_. Does the entire hospital know who he really is?"

"Maybe a couple of the staff, but they haven't said anything to date, which is damn close to a miracle. I don't think the patients care one way or the other." He tipped his head back. "I met him once, you know. Brilliant diagnostician. Complete bastard with it, or at least he worked hard to make you think so."

"I've been seeing him since June and have one decent session's worth of notes. And now this damn bargain with the journals! What the hell was I thinking?" She ran a hand through her curls and yanked at them in frustration. "The man's too smart—" She stopped.

"Consider this a consult," Eugene said, his tone reasonable. He untangled her fingers from her curls and kissed her hand before releasing it. "We can make it official tomorrow. You said he needs a pain management specialist." He smiled. "Good thing you're married to one."

It was a sensible suggestion. She got up, brought him the journal. He set aside his glass and opened it. When she resumed her seat he made room for her, his arms encircling her in a loose embrace as he turned pages.

"It's a puzzle," he said after a time. Sarah made a rude sound. "Now, now," he said in mild reproof, and she laughed. "More than that, he's testing you. He wants to see how smart you are. If you don't meet his expectations he won't give you anything else."

"No surprises there." She sighed softly. "What's the key then?" Gene closed the journal.

"No clue," he said with what she considered to be unwarranted cheer. "But someone else might know. Several someones, in fact." He grinned at her. "Why don't we ask a few of the staff at Princeton-Plainsboro over for dinner?"

"House might consider that to be cheating," Sarah said. Gene tilted his head and let his gaze settle on her. The love there always made surprised her a little even as it warmed her like the whiskey in her glass.

"I think he thinks all's fair," he said. "I also have my suspicions the man was a pirate in a past life, and you'd do well to remember it. He'll expect you to use every resource at your disposal. And he wants to see how far you're willing to go to get your diagnosis. Let's not disappoint him."

"One pirate knows another, I guess." Sarah kissed his cheek. "I'll call Wilson and see what he says."


	8. Chapter 8

September 6th

In the end Sarah decided to have the meeting in Princeton; it was simply more convenient for the people with whom she wished to consult. Wilson opened his home to her and even made dinner himself.

"You know this could mean big trouble for you," Sarah had said during a phone call the previous day.

"Only if no one likes my cooking," Wilson said. "Look, it's for the cause. Besides, I've faced a lot worse for your patient and lived to tell the tale."

Now Sarah stood before the people grouped around Wilson's dining room table. She sent him a silent thanks for his courage and generosity, took a deep breath and began.

"You're probably all wondering why I've asked you here," she said. "This is definitely outside normal protocol, not to mention HIPPA regs, but I need some help with a case. Hypothetical, of course."

Doctor Foreman gave Sarah a cynical look. "Of course," he said. "Come on, Doctor Goldman. We all know this is about H--"

"--Lorenzo de Medici," Sarah said, her voice raised to cover Foreman's. "We have to preserve as much confidentiality as possible."

"Torquemada would be a better choice for a pseudonym." Foreman said, and smirked when laughter followed his comment. "What's the point? If this is all _hypothetical_," his voice dripped with sarcasm, "what difference does it make?"

"The less you can say you know, the better. If somehow I do end up being held to account for what's going on here tonight, at least you can't be," Sarah said quietly. "You might take this little gathering as proof of my desperation. Truthfully . . ." She hesitated, not sure she should say more. _Oh, what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound._ "I'm afraid for my patient."

A shocked silence fell over the room.

"How--how bad is it?" Doctor Cameron asked, her words hesitant. Next to her Doctor Chase looked away, but not before Sarah saw a flash of resentment in his eyes. _Aha,_ she thought. _Book-of-Love triangle stuff. Plenty of backstory there. Wonder if she and House . . . _She pushed the thought away as irrelevant at the moment.

"Bad enough. Your insights might help me help him find healing," she said. "Anyone who wants to leave now can do so, no questions asked."

There was some shifting of position, a few covert glances at each other, but they all stayed.

"So what do you need from us specifically?" Doctor Taub asked at last. Sarah relaxed a little. They were willing to help--to varying degrees and for differing motives of course, but that didn't matter.

"Your collective expertise in differential diagnosis," she said. "We have a complex puzzle to work on. Let's get started."

Once the table was cleared and coffee brought in, she took out her legal pad and said "I'd like you to sit in a circle around the table, please."

"This is never a _seance_?" Chase said, and flushed as Sarah raised an eyebrow. The group obeyed her request with a few jokes and barbed comments. Sarah noted body language and seating preferences, and stored the information as potentially useful later. When she produced the notebook the atmosphere changed from a general air of amused cynicism to intense interest.

"My patient created this journal," she said. "He's given me permission to read it. Of course I've tried to, but haven't gotten very far. You'll see why." She set the notebook on the table. "Letting you see this is stretching that permission to its limits, and maybe beyond. I'll ask you all to keep private anything you learn." Sarah put a protective hand on the battered cover. "Trust doesn't come easily to Lorenzo. Don't betray him by gossiping about this in your workplace."

"And you're sure we can figure out more than you have?" Taub shook his head. "Considering who we're dealing with--hypothetically speaking," he sent Sarah a sly glance filled with quiet amusement,"that's a lot to assume. Especially with the de Medici."

Sarah acknowledged his gibe with a smile; she rather liked his laconic manner, though she doubted House did. "You've worked with him, know his patterns and quirks better than I ever will." She ignored Foreman's soft snort. "Any idea or insight that comes to you, no matter how trivial it might seem, would be welcome." She opened the journal, let them pass it around and examine the pages. To her surprise there was little or no conversation. Each person was focused entirely on the book and its contents.

It was Cameron who gave the first suggestion. "Look at the way the entries are structured," she said. "They're like whiteboard lists."

"Good! That's great!" Sarah scribbled a note on her legal pad. "Excellent start, keep going."

"Wait--hold on," Wilson said about five minutes in. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a menu. "Go back to the page written in Hindi."

Sarah obliged. He opened the menu and lay it next to the list. "Patel's," he said. "It's a takeout place, we get pakoras and curry there all the time! Look--" He pointed to a side order. The Indian name had an English translation added beneath it. Several of the names matched the writing on the journal page. "This must be the patient's favorites. At least that's my hypothetical guess," he added, his expression sober while his dark eyes gleamed with humor.

The next breakthrough came from Doctor Hadley, or Thirteen as the others called her. She paused over a page full of number-letter strings with a little frown of concentration. "Enigma," she said softly.

"That's pretty obvious," Foreman said.

"Not literally," Thirteen said. "You know, like the machine they used during World War Two to encrypt messages. It's a code--you substitute ciphers or numbers for letters based on a rotation . . ." Her slender finger followed a line of text. "Hazelnut," she said after a few moments. "Chocolate and blood orange, vanilla bean, rhubarb and pear . . ." Her lips curved just a little. "The Bent Spoon."

"The what?" Chase sent her a quizzical look.

"It's an ice cream shop on Palmer Square West. They make seasonal flavors with local ingredients." Thirteen set the book back in the middle of the table. "Hou--the patient loves their stuff. He got me hooked on the double chocolate. Made me pay for his orders too."

"_You_, eating ice cream? You live on yogurt and Special K bars," Foreman said. Thirteen sent him a mock glare.

"I'm not on a diet," she said. "And I happen to know for a fact that hazelnut is the patient's favorite."

Sarah regarded her notes. Her pen tapped a slow tattoo on the legal pad. "I'm beginning to see a pattern."

"But we've only decoded two pages," Cameron said. Sarah shook her head.

"Three," she said. "I can read hieratic--well, basics anyway."

"Hieratic," Taub said. "That's ancient Egyptian--a sort of shorthand created by scribes. Easier and faster to work with than hieroglyphs." He glanced at the journal, then at Sarah. "You can read and translate a dead language?"

"So can you," Sarah said, amused. "Latin hasn't been anyone's native tongue for almost two thousand years, but as a doctor you use it every day." She rubbed her arm in an absent manner. "The hieratic list is a verbal map of exhibits in the Cairo Museum."

"That makes sense," Wilson said. "The patient lived in Egypt for a while. He loved the Museum, used to hang out there whenever he had a chance."

"So what pattern do you see?" Cameron asked.

"Favorites," Thirteen said. She looked at Sarah, who nodded in confirmation. Foreman folded his arms but said nothing, his expression one of long-suffering resignation. Thirteen shot him a warning look. He grinned at her, his features softening. Sarah hid a smile. _Office romances everywhere_, she thought. _House must have a field day with all this hormonal angstfest._

"It can't be that easy," Chase said. "Nothing's ever simple with--uh, with Lorenzo."

"Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of layers," Sarah said. "Once we get more pages figured out, we might be able to find the subtleties. For now, I'll settle for basics."

Wilson stood. "We're gonna need a bigger coffeepot," he said. "I"ll make a run to the Acme for a bag of beans. Anything else we need?"

**

He sits in a lumpy excuse of a chair, looking out the window. They've finally put him back in a room with a view, though it's not much of one. Outside a hot September wind sweeps down the lawn and scatters brown leaves fallen prematurely from the unending drought.

_Wonder how it's going_, he thinks. _Wonder if she's called everyone in yet. Wonder if Cuddy will show up._ Her participation is a long shot, the longest of anyone possibly involved with solving what he privately calls the Obvious Dumb Joke; for her to plausibly deny knowledge of his specific whereabouts while on his 'sabbatical', she has to avoid even the appearance of collusion. Still, the thought of Cuddy distant, maybe even uncaring makes him flinch.

"You're a fool," Amber says. She lies on his bed; her pale eyes glitter in the semi-darkness. "The good doctor's not going to keep her promise. She'll take one look at what's in that notebook and make sure you never leave this place. She'll know you broke the deal."

Fear stabs at him. _I won't last all that much longer in here,_ he thinks. The knowledge is terrifying. He feels as if an unseen enemy is stalking him, waiting for the right moment to strike. The drugs that don't begin to cover his pain but leave him groggy and listless, the endless afternoons spent watching soaps, Divorce Court and Judge Judy, the lack of anything on which to focus his mind, especially now that the ODJ is finished--they are all crows picking at his decaying corpse. He winces at the self-pitying and weak metaphor. _Boredom is killing me,_ he thinks, and knows that isn't the whole truth. But the trouble is, he doesn't want to know all of it. Does he?

"Of course you don't," Amber says, her tone mocking. "Where's the fun in that?" He turns his face away from her and looks out over the withered lawn, fights the panic welling up inside. _Come on, people. Find something, anything to work with . . . _He fights the last word, gives it up with helpless reluctance.

_Please._


	9. Chapter 9

_"Desperado" is written, sung and owned by the Eagles, not me. _

September 7th

"Doctor Goldman wants to meet you in the yard," the orderly says. He looms over House like a shadow. It's okay though, this guy's actually one of the few decent staff in this pit of doom.

"It's her day off," House says.

"I dunno 'bout days off," the orderly says--a lie if there ever was one, but it's a nice line anyway. "Come on, it beats makin' them stupid baskets in OT."

True enough. House shuffles to the door and follows the Shadow outside.

It's early but already warm and sticky, the harbinger of yet another miserable day of oppressive heat and humidity. The House Whisperer is indeed waiting for him, sitting on a picnic table. She's clad in worn jeans, a sage green camisole with a thin white cardigan over it and a cheap pair of flipflops, as unlike her usual somber office camouflage as it's possible to get without showing up stark naked. _Too skinny for that_, he thinks. _Nice rack though. _Perched atop her head is a black Stetson, battered and well broken in. As he approaches she tips it back with a careless gesture, revealing a pale face with substantial dark smudges under her eyes. At her side is a small cooler. House stops a few feet away. "Nice hat," he says.

"Took it right off a cowboy's head," she says. "Paid a shot of tequila and a kiss for it."

"So you're a cheap date. Good to know." He can just see her in some honky-tonk in East Bumfuck, snatching that thing from Jesse James's noggin. "You look like hell," he says. To his surprise, she grins at him. He realizes she is absolutely sodden with fatigue, but not at all concerned about it. The knowledge puts him on guard.

"She thinks she understands you now," Amber whispers in his ear. "You can have all kinds of fun with that assumption."

"Damn, that's a shame 'cause I feel great." The subtle twang he's always noticed in the doctor's quiet voice is more pronounced, most likely because she's tired. "Take a load off." She pats the table top. "Had breakfast yet?"

He stays where he is, though it hurts like hell to stand in one place for too long. "You were up all night working on that stupid notebook."

"Yeah." She leans back a bit. "You threw me a girlie pitch," she says, looking off into the distance. The word 'pitch' comes out in two brief, liquid syllables: _pih-yitch_. She doesn't seem pissed off about his deception.

"How much of it did everyone figure out?" he asks, interested despite himself. For answer she opens the cooler. Inside, packed in ice, are two pint containers. She offers him one along with a plastic spoon. He limps to her, takes it, removes the lid, peers inside. "Thirteen decoded one of the better pages," he says after a moment, and digs in. The rich, roasted-caramel taste of hazelnut ice cream coats his tongue. He savors that first cascade of flavor; it's the best part of the whole experience. Slowly he sits on the bench seat. "What kind of a doctor are you, giving wack jobs ice cream for breakfast?" he says. She licks her spoon.

"A good one," she says, and digs out another heaping mouthful. She takes her time to enjoy it before speaking again. "It wasn't BS."

He turns his head to look at her, incredulous. "It was _total_ BS!"

"No way, son. I got three degrees in BS," she says. "You're a rank amateur at shovelin' shit." The word 'shit' also has two syllables: _shih-yit_.

"Your food handler's license doesn't count," he says. She laughs. It's the first time he's heard her laugh, and it's a pure, sweet sound of real delight. Something in it eases his heart. He pushes the knowledge away.

"Like hell it doesn't," she says. "Those damn things are harder to get than college degrees." They are silent for a while, eating ice cream in what has become an almost companionable silence.

"So," he says when his pint is empty, "what's with the hick shtick?"

"You showed me yours," she says. "Now I'm showing you mine." She sets aside her ice cream and stretches out her arm, slowly pushes up the sleeve of her thin sweater. On her forearm is a tattoo--a cartouche. Just above it are over a dozen scars, parallel horizontal incisions about three inches long, some with clean edges, some ragged and choked with excess tissue. He stares at them, shocked into silence. Their ugliness is made worse because they desecrate the silken, creamy skin of a beautiful woman; they speak of unendurable pain and futile attempts to make it stop. He lowers his gaze, not sure what to do. Her past misery speaks to him in ways he cannot endure.

"Maat-Ka-Re," he says finally. "In the cartouche. That's Hatshepsut."

"Her prenomen, yes. I think of her as the original Queen of Hearts," she says, and lowers her arm. She doesn't cover it though, just rests it on her thigh. "A strong woman who knew who and what she was. And what she wanted."

"Did the cutting help?" he asks. He already knows the answer, but wants to hear what she will say.

"For a while. At least the ones I made myself did." Her voice is quiet, neutral in tone. He holds his breath as what she is telling him breaks into his mind like a gunshot._ Someone deliberately cut her._ Horror and fury fill him but he remains silent, struggling to push away his own memories of pain and helplessness.

"Anything works, for a time," she is saying now. "Then I found out who and what I really am and what I want, and most days that's sufficient." She picks up her pint of ice cream, stares into the half-empty container, sets it aside. "I can work with you, if you want me to."

"I don't know what I want," he says.

"Yes, you do." Her voice is gentle, firm, inexorable. "Yes you do."

"So, you've decided to fix me," he says under his breath, his words harsh with the bitter resentment he cannot hide. She turns to look at him. Under the wide black brim of the Stetson her sea-green eyes are serious, intent.

"No," she says. "You choose healing for yourself. And you choose what you heal. There's a big difference." She holds his gaze. "And anyway, who says you need fixing?"

He flinches at the words, remembering someone else saying them. That's two women telling him they'll take him as he is. They must be insane. All he ever had to offer was his ability to find the truth, and now even that is gone. "What use are you then?" he asks, loud enough to startle a nearby crow into flight.

"I can help you. If you'll let me," she says. He stares at her.

"You think because you read that stupid joke of a journal, because you've gone through whatever you've gone through--you think you know anything about me?" He pushes away from the table, hurls the empty pint and spoon away.

"I don't know jack shit about you," she says. "But I'm willing to listen, if you'll allow it." He sees her pull something out of her purse, her hand stopping for a moment before she brings forth the object; a small gesture, but very telling. The something is a notebook. Not the ODJ, this is a different one, smaller and more compact, an artist's sketchbook. She holds it out to him. He doesn't take it.

"You really did keep a journal?" he says, and laughs. It's an ugly, cruel bray, full of ridicule. "How stupid are you! And now you're actually going to let me _read_ it?"

"Of course," she says. Suddenly he's angry with her. This has to be some sort of trick. That little hesitation tells him despite her reassurances she's afraid of what he'll do with the information she's offering, which puts him in a bind. As much as he wants to break her down just for shits and giggles, another part of him doesn't want to hurt her. She's been through enough. He knows which side will win, though.

"Watch out," Amber says with malicious satisfaction. "She's trying to set her hook. Don't let her reel you in."

"You know I'll use anything in there as ammunition," he says. "_Anything_. I'll rip you to shreds just for fun--you _know_ that!"

"I'd expect nothing less." she says, and now she's smiling. He scrubs his fingers through his hair in frustration.

"But _why_?" he shouts at her. Off in a corner of the yard he sees the Shadow stub out his cigarette and start toward them. Doctor Goldman looks at the orderly, shakes her head. He stops, goes back to the corner. It's infuriating. House glares at her, outraged that this skinny little woman holds that much power over him.

"I made you a promise," she says, and tilts her head a little when he groans. "You're a tough act to follow, you know. You're a helluva lot smarter than me, that's for sure. But I know a few things you don't. And that's good enough to go on, if you want to."

"What if I don't?" he says, frustration pushing him to impulse. "What if I tell you to fuck off?"

"Then I'll leave," she says. "And you can do whatever it is you've been doing to this point. Which hasn't worked out too well, judging by available evidence."

That's it, then. She's laid it out so he cannot ignore the truth of his situation. There is nothing for it except to take her journal. "Thanks," she says when it is in his hands. He rolls his eyes.

"You won't be so happy later," he says. "But it's your funeral."

She hops off the table and picks up his pint container and spoon, places them in the cooler along with what's left of her own treat. "My husband wants to work with you on pain management," she says. He can't help the leap of hope her words cause, but he avoids her gaze. "If you agree, he'll see you on Wednesday right after our session." She shakes the sleeve of her sweater down over her arm, a casual gesture that doesn't fool him for a moment. Showing him those scars was anything but casual on her part. He's sure she keeps them hidden most of the time, even in private. "I'll bring your journal back to you."

"Keep it," he says. It means nothing to him; in fact the thought of it is an embarrassment now, a joke that fell flat. She nods, steps forward. To his surprise her small hand comes to rest on his arm, just for a moment. Her touch is light as a butterfly. The gentle pressure offers a curious sense of comfort.

"Remember, you choose. Always," she says. She withdraws her hand and walks away into the hot morning sunshine with no hesitation in her step. She doesn't look back. The Shadow lumbers toward him. It's time to return to the cold, bland confines of the hospital.

For once though he can hardly wait to get to his room. As the door is locked behind him he sits on the edge of his bed and contemplates his new toy. _Anticipation is half the fun_, he thinks.

"I can't believe you're falling for this," Amber says. She sits next to him, a sullen look plastered over her features. "You're seven kinds of a moron for buying into her lies. She's manipulating you into thinking you have choices! You know that's complete bullshit!"

He ignores her and opens the notebook. Amber folds her arms in disgust and retreats to a corner, watching him with glowering resentment.

On the inside front cover is a brief note, written in a precise, firm hand.

_Okay, I cheated too. But just a little. --S.G.  
_

Below the note is a set of lyrics to the song "Desperado". He pinches the bridge of his nose, in actual physical pain at the sentimentality of her choice. _Good God, she really is a hick right down to the bone_, he thinks. He starts to read the lines and the song slides into place in his mind, a perfect recording straight from memory. As he listens to the familiar melody, he is astonished to feel the sting of tears against his eyelids, a tightening at the back of his throat.

_"You know the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet . . ."  
_

_The Queen of Hearts,_ he repeats silently, and sees a slender arm scarred with more memories of pain than even he can bear to think about. And to his horror, when his treacherous mind takes him to his last moments with Cuddy, her hand stroking his cheek, her eyes dark with worry and fear, fight as he will the sorrow and guilt created by that memory grows. The words on the paper blur and fade as the music plays in his head. The journal slips out of his hand and falls soundlessly to the carpeted floor. Outside his window trees shudder in the stifling wind. He stares at them without seeing, the lingering taste of hazelnut turning to salt and ashes on his tongue.

_"You'd better let somebody love you/Before it's too late . . ."_


	10. Chapter 10

September 9th

It is well after midnight. The change of shift has come and gone; the deep quiet of the small hours settles over Mayfield. He lies atop his bed, too tired to sleep. No, that's not true. He's too wound up to sleep. Wait, that's not right either. Actually he's scared shitless about his meeting with Gene Goldman later this morning.

"Pain management," he says out loud. He hates that phrase with every fiber of his being. It's a euphemism for control, for rationing, deprivation, and a lifetime of misery.

"Wow," Amber says. She sits next to the bed, regards him with amusement. "Riding the association train tonight, I see."

He ignores her and touches Sarah Goldman's journal, lying next to his pillow. He feels ridiculous keeping it there, but he's still not quite sure it's real. No point in asking anyone else if the thing exists. In fact he's not certain this entire experience isn't some massive delusion and he's really still in lockdown, tied to the bed and stoned on Ativan. It _feels_ real enough, though.

"Awwwww," Amber says. "Tough not knowing who or what to believe, isn't it? Good thing you've got me."

He's read through the journal several times now. It is as simple and truthful as his was complex and duplicitous. Some of the entries are illustrated, little watercolor and ink sketches full of vivid detail, mostly of rural settings; one or two are portraits. She has a good eye, an artist's eye, and plenty of skill. Her work brings her words to life.

She's a native Sooner, one of the few he's met. He remembers Oklahoma as flat, brown and boring. She remembers it as hell. Copious physical and emotional abuse, raped repeatedly by a cousin, addict parents in and out of rehab, in and out of her life from the time of her birth; she'd tried suicide twice and ended up where he is now, all by the age of twelve. Her teenage years were a little better, as her paternal grandmother took her in and gave her a stable home, if nothing else. She graduated from high school and went on to college, a career and eventually, marriage. There is no mention of the three degrees she spoke of in their little tete-a-tete the other morning. He suspects she is unwilling to look like she's bragging. Even the recounting of the horrendous details of her early life is factual, without exaggeration or excess emotion. He has the strong sense that she's let go of her history somehow, an astonishing feat of will considering how much she's been through. While he envies her freedom, at the same time it causes a feeling of dread deep inside, and he can't figure out why.

He wishes she hadn't told him about her terrible childhood. He'll use it against her; he knows it'll happen. And selfish bastard that he is, he isn't as worried he'll hurt her as he is that he'll screw up his chances for scoring some really great drugs from her husband. He needs a fix like babies need mothers milk. _One more day without something to kill the pain and I won't be responsible for what happens_, he thinks, and knows it's desperation talking, nothing more.

"The truth will out," Amber says, her tone mocking. He touches the journal, closes his eyes, and tries once more to relax.


	11. Chapter 11

September 10th

Gene wasn't sure what to expect during his first meeting with Greg House. Still, he was fairly certain that finding his patient sitting behind his desk, rifling through the top drawer, wasn't on the list. He pulled the door shut behind him and came into the room. House glanced up, blue eyes fierce in his gaunt face, and continued his search. Gene took the seat across from the desk and made himself comfortable.

"Good morning," he said. House didn't respond. He yanked on the locked bottom drawer.

"Key," he said. Gene said nothing. House leveled a look at him. "Do. You. Have. A. Key," he said, over-pronouncing each word as if speaking to an idiot.

"Yes," Gene said. House tilted his head in a quizzical manner.

"Well?" he said. Gene shrugged.

"You asked if I had a key," he said. "I answered your question."

"DUH," House said. "Hand it over. I can't conduct a thorough search unless I get to look through all the drawers. Hence the word 'thorough'."

"You're telling me you can't pick a lock?" Gene leaned back and crossed his legs. "I've heard differently, you know."

House narrowed his eyes. "Wilson's a total yenta," he said. "I get it. There's no way you want me to see your files, because then I'll know you can't help me."

Gene gave a soundless sigh. "The spare key is taped on the underside of the desktop," he said. House located it and opened the drawer. He took a handful of files and spread them out.

"Lots of patients," he said. "Bet you make the big bucks." Gene was silent. House rolled his eyes. "Oh, don't tell me you're as modest as your little slice of sweet pertater pie."

"Modest?" Gene shook his head. "Not really. I'm good at what I do."

House picked up the first file. "I'll be the judge of that," he said.

"Be my guest," Gene said. House gave him a hard stare, then opened the folder.

"Inoperable cancer," he said after a moment. "No difficulties there. Morphine and plenty of it."

"If that's Helen's file, she refused to be sedated or over-medicated," Gene said. "She didn't want to die unaware of her surroundings."

"Helen was a moron," House said. He tossed the file aside. "So you gave her the minimum palliative care possible."

"We worked together on the right coverage," Gene said. "She was able to tolerate the level of pain she was in, and that's what she wanted."

"And that's your goal? To do the bare minimum?" The sarcasm couldn't quite hide fear--quite a lot of fear, in fact. Gene chose his next words with care. One misstep and he would lose the chance to gain his patient's trust, probably for good.

"The objective is to help my patients manage their pain to our mutual satisfaction," he said. House snorted in obvious derision.

"I don't want my pain _managed_. I want it gone, as in non-existent." He paused. "You can do that?"

"I won't make promises I can't keep," Gene said. He watched House's expression darken. "But I can promise to do everything in my power to find what works for you." He nodded at the pile on the desk. "Keep reading."

"Okay," House said after he had perused several cases. "You're as good as your word, at least on paper." He shoved the files to one side. Some of them fell on the floor and scattered papers everywhere. Gene regarded the mess with resignation. He couldn't dump it on Lois, his long-suffering receptionist; she would never forgive him for destroying her careful work. _So much for watching the game this evening._ He switched his attention back to House, who was speaking once more. "--if I tell you what I want and you give it to me?"

"I can't do that," Gene said. "You're an addict. Unfortunately, you're also legitimately dependent on pain meds. That makes the whole process more difficult."

"So we're both wasting our time," House said. He pushed away from the desk.

"I didn't say that," Gene said mildly. "I said it would be more difficult." He watched his patient struggle to his feet. "I'm willing to try, if you are."

"Do I have a choice?" House gripped the back of the chair.

"Yes," Gene said. House shook his head.

"You and your chicken-fried girlfriend are both delusional," he said. "I work with you, I get my hopes up for nothing and I'm back to collecting Lortabs. Choices galore." He glared at Gene. "It's simple. Write me a scrip for Vicodin."

"There are more treatment possibilities in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Gene said. "Vicodin didn't work for you."

"Like hell it didn't!" House snapped. "An unlimited prescription would be a great start to a beautiful supply and demand relationship." He held out his hand. "Gimme."

"Even if Vicodin was an option, I'd hesitate to prescribe it," Gene said. "During one two-day period you took nitro to create a migraine-like headache, followed by an experimental anti-migraine med, followed by acid, followed by anti-depressants."

"It wasn't migraine-like, it was the real thing," House said. "So I'm too crazy to fit your parameters? And who ratted me out, as if I didn't know?"

"The drugapalooza was noted in your file," Gene said, and couldn't keep from smiling. "If you haven't noticed yet, you're in a nut house. I think 'crazy' is a parameter that fits a number of people here, and not just the patients. And that's not why I wouldn't give you Vicodin."

There was a brief silence. "Care to explain?" House said finally.

"Besides the experimentation, you underwent an extremely risky surgical procedure almost immediately after sustaining injuries, including concussion, during a traffic accident. You suffered at least one seizure and possibly others. You were also in another traffic accident recently. That's a lot of physical damage in a comparatively short period of time, and they happened during an incident which might or might not have its origin in previous damage. That complicates things considerably," Gene said.

"I'm fine." House tossed another file on the floor. "Oops. See, if I had my medication that wouldn't have happened." He gave Gene a challenging look. Gene said nothing, only waited. House's defiance leaked away, bit by bit. After an awkward moment he lowered his gaze. "Vicodin helps me function," he said. His tone was sullen, defiant.

"That's the real reason you took it?" Gene asked, keeping his tone one of curiosity.

"If I took it for the high then I'm evil incarnate because I like being stoned," House said. "If I took it for the pain, then I'm a drug-seeking pussy. Doesn't matter what I say, does it?"

"Okay, let me put it another way," Gene said. "What do you want more? Freedom from pain, or an eternal buzz?"

"Both," House said. Gene smiled.

"In a perfect world you'd get both," he said. "But in a perfect world you wouldn't be missing a big chunk of your thigh muscle. That dumbass attending would have figured out he was dealing with an infarction and not a charlie horse." He sat up a bit. "If you could become relatively pain-free with a clear mind, would that be worth working on the addiction to get it?"

"Aha," House said. "The carrot at long last. Too bad it doesn't hide that big knobbly stick you're carrying."

"I can't change the choices you're given," Gene said. "I can only help you decide what will work best for you. And from what I've seen, a life with as little interference from pain and drugs as possible could happen, if you're willing to try for it." He looked at House, keeping his expression neutral. "I'd like to run a test or two, if you're agreeable."

"You've got plenty of test results in my file," House said. "If you require my balls, they were put in the lock box when I came here."

"I want to check some genetic markers," Gene said. "The amount of Vicodin you were taking would have kept two people comatose, even accounting for tolerance. I suspect you have an hereditary resistance to pain meds. It's rare, only about seven percent of people with Western European ancestry have it, but it's worth a look-see."

House considered, then nodded. "Okay. But only if I get to go over the results."

"Fine by me. Let's get started then," Gene said. "There are some buccal swab kits in the left hand drawer. Grab one and we'll send it off to the lab today."

"That's it? No lectures, no compulsory NA meetings, no moral high ground?" House gave him a searching look. Gene kept his expression deadpan.

"You know what they say about assumptions," he said.

That garnered a slight smile. "There are exceptions," House said. "Myself being one." He rummaged in the drawer and extracted a kit.

"So I've heard," Gene said. He stood and stretched tight shoulder muscles. This had gone somewhat better than he'd expected. "Open wide, genius."

"I could get you fired for that remark," House said. He broke the seal on the kit. "You're taking a risk letting me in on the diagnosis and treatment, aren't you?"

Gene thought of previous administrative freakouts regarding his methods. "Yes."

"Good," House said. "Maybe we're on the right track after all." He stuck the swab in his mouth and scraped his cheek.

_Time will tell_, Gene thought, and hoped he could navigate the stormy waters ahead.


	12. Chapter 12

September 22nd

"I want to see him."

Wilson watched Cuddy shred a tissue over his clean carpet. "You have to understand what the consequences would be," he said quietly.

"I don't care." She sounded defiant and worse, frightened. "It's been four months."

"If he really was on sabbatical it could be two years before you'd see him again," Wilson said. "You'll be risking your career as well as his with this decision."

"There has to be a way," Cuddy said. Her shoulders drooped. "I keep imagining him stuck in that horrible place without--without anyone to talk to, no familiar faces."

"Yes, because no one ever visits him in the lightless dungeons of the Black Hole of Mayfield. He's been completely abandoned," Wilson said, his tone dry. "He only sees me every weekend." He sighed when she looked away. "Okay. You didn't hear me say this, but you could probably come up during the weekend. Sunday would be good."

"But that's when most people visit, isn't it?" Cuddy said. She wouldn't look at him, her gaze focused on the tattered tissue wadded in her palm. "Won't someone see me?"

"If you try to sneak in during the week, I can guarantee the entire hospital will know about it within five minutes of your arrival." Wilson offered her a slight smile. "The grapevine there works like the one at Princeton-Plainsboro. A little faster, actually."

"They'll still notice me visiting on Sunday," Cuddy said.

"Family and friends are expected then," Wilson said. "Yes, you'd be noticed, but not so much." He tilted his head. "Sunglasses," he said. "Blonde wig, Walmart top, ratty jeans, sandals. No one will ever guess it's you, especially in off the rack clothes."

"This is ridiculous!" Cuddy stuffed the tissue in her purse. "I'm Dean of Medicine at one of the most prestigious teaching hospitals on the East Coast, for god's sake! That should give me some cachet!"

"You're well aware that doesn't apply here at all," Wilson said. She started to protest, then slanted a resigned look his way.

"Fine," she said. "Maybe we could call Doctor Goldman, see what she has to say."

"She'll say that it's too soon," Wilson said. "House isn't the same person you knew when you last saw him."

Cuddy's eyes widened. "Now you're scaring me," she said, her voice low and uncertain. "Haven't they done _anything_ to help him in four months time?"

"He didn't reach the breaking point overnight," Wilson said. "Considering what he's been through lately, it's a miracle he's able to function at all. They're doing their best but the problem is, he's not sure he wants to be helped." He hesitated. "He may not agree to see you," he said softly.

"I'll take that chance," Cuddy said at last, and stood. She picked up her briefcase and slung her purse over her shoulder. "Talk with Doctor Goldman. Ask if she'll okay a visit." Wilson winced at the plea hidden in her brisk voice.

"I live to serve," he said, and got up to see her to the door.

**

"Uh uh," Sarah said. "Absolutely not."

"One visit," Wilson said. "Half an hour, just so she can see him, see how he's doing."

"No one can see him at the moment." Sarah sounded weary. "He's under observation."

"What happened?" Wilson gripped the phone.

"He injured his arm this morning right after his pain management session. No one is really sure what happened. It could have been an accident, but we can't tell because he's not talking." The sorrow in Sarah's quiet words caught at Wilson. _She really does care deeply about him, _he thought. "He and Gene have been working on a med regimen and the results have been disappointing so far." She paused. "House may have a genetic marker for resistance to pain meds."

"_Shit_," Wilson said under his breath.

"Exactly. That means the choices could be . . . stark, for lack of a better word." Sarah sighed a little. "Gene's been trying everything he can think of to find a plan that will work, but he's limited in what he can do drug-wise because one of the latest tests came back with elevated liver enzymes. So for now we're at an impasse any way you look at things."

"Permanent, or temporary?" Wilson asked. Dread made a hard lump in his throat.

"That's up to the patient to some extent. He's crammed full of old fears and distrust, and they're keeping him paralyzed. He can't do the work he needs to do. But we won't force him. We can only wait until he decides to take the first step."

"He may be too damaged," Wilson said.

"It's possible," Sarah said. "But we'll give him every chance to find a way." She was silent a moment. "Please tell Doctor Cuddy I'm sorry about saying no."

"Of course. I'll be up this weekend," Wilson said. "Let me take you and Gene out for dinner. No shop talk, just a nice evening."

"Yeah, sure." Sarah chuckled, a soft, musical sound that always lifted Wilson's spirits. "Shouldn't make promises you can't keep, son. We'll take you up on it if you stay at our place. It's silly for you to pay for a hotel when we've got a perfectly good spare bedroom you can have."

"Okay, but only if you let me make Sunday breakfast." Wilson couldn't help smiling. "You're as bad as House, forcing me to negotiate everything."

"It's control freakism run amok! Giant robots are next!" Sarah said, and he laughed, as she had obviously meant him to. "So, when are you coming up, Friday or Saturday? And just so you know, I'm laying in a supply of macadamia nuts and buttermilk."

Wilson groaned. "Don't you ever get tired of those pancakes? They'll make you fat!"

"You just never mind my weight. The skillet will be good and greasy when Sunday rolls around." She laughed again and he closed his eyes for a moment, enjoying the comfort of her company. _House really is in good hands_, he thought, and felt a lessening of fear. _Whatever happens, she and Gene will take care of him somehow. And so will I.  
_


	13. Chapter 13

_"Let's Spend the Night Together" is written, sung and owned by the Rolling Stones, not me. The line Cuddy recalls is from the novel Altered States, by Paddy Chayefsky. _

September 22nd

Lisa gave up trying to sleep at 3 a.m. Even through the air conditioning she could feel the hot night outside, trying to get in. With a sigh she rose and padded into the kitchen, pausing only once to check on Rachel.

A cursory inspection of the fridge yielded nothing but formula, salad, a lone wine cooler and half a tub of fake butter. The freezer wasn't much better—a container of sugar-free mint chocolate chip ice cream, hamburger patties, a bag of peas. She took out the ice cream, snagged a spoon from the drawer and opened the lid. A thick layer of frost lay over the contents. She scraped off some of the ice crystals and dug out a chunk of desiccated ice cream. It tasted like freezer-burned toothpaste. She spat the mouthful into the sink and threw the rest of the container away.

She ended up outside on the porch swing with the wine cooler. It was still sultry even at this early hour, but at least the air was fresh. A slight breeze rustled leaves; the neighbor's bug zapper did in yet another foolish moth. Lisa rolled the bottle across her forehead and let the cool beads of condensation trickle over her skin. They felt a bit like tears. She pushed the image away. _I've had enough of crying_, she told herself, and knew it wasn't true.

_Wonder what House is doing right now_, she thought after a while. _Sleeping, I hope. _Her inner voice fell silent for a moment. Then, _Wish he was here with me. _The idea was ludicrous; he hated porch swings and would never consent to sit so close to her, or to anyone for that matter. But she couldn't resist picturing the two of them together, his long thigh pressed to hers, his arm around her shoulders–

"Get a grip," she muttered, and took a long swallow of wine cooler. Somewhere down the street a dog barked and whined. She gave the swing a little push, her big toe digging into the rough concrete for leverage.

There had been one time when she and House had been close, a lot closer than just sitting together on a porch swing. She hadn't fully opened that memory in years, though it stood between the two of them every time they met.

_Oh, what the hell,_ she thought after a minute or two of waffling. _Why not take a stroll down memory lane? _She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, then let her mind drift.

**

"_C'mon, Cuddy! If you don't go to this party everyone's gonna know you're a nerd for sure." Claire folded her arms. "And I'm tired of being picked on because of you."_

_Lisa turned a page and gave her roommate a vague glance. "I've got a test tomorrow."_

"_So __what__? You can cram in the morning." Claire smoothed a carefully crafted wing of thick blonde hair. "Tri Beta's buying the booze."_

"_I'm not going." Lisa put her pen down and took a sip of Coke. "Don't forget your key. I'm not getting up to let you in again."_

"_I heard that weird guy's gonna be there," Claire said in what she obviously considered her best persuasive tone. "You know, the one you think is cute."_

"_I don't think he's cute!" Lisa spilled some Coke on her book and rubbed at it with her sleeve. "He's a jerk! He tripped me in the library and put gum in my hair!"_

"_So he's a jerk." Claire shrugged. "Why not get some revenge? Pee in his beer or something." _

_Lisa sighed and pushed an unruly tress behind her ear. She glared at her roomie. Maybe it wasn't too late to request a change of residence. It was only early October, but she was already tired of living with a party hog who didn't seem to understand pre-meds had to spend nearly every waking moment studying. "Okay, fine. If I go for an hour, will you leave me alone?"_

"_Cool!" Claire was all smiles. "Change into something nice," her scornful gaze rejected the rumpled tee shirt and jeans Lisa had on. "I'll do your hair. Come ON, we're gonna be late!"_

_It was well past the start of festivities when they walked through Fraternity Row to the house where the mixer was being held. Brightly colored leaves obscured the sidewalk; the air was crisp and cool. Fall had finally arrived in Ann Arbor, and it was as intoxicating as fine wine. She found herself wanting to break away from the noise and crowds ahead and walk into the darkness alone, as she had often done when troubled or lonely. She resisted the urge and followed Claire, pushing away a vague sense of apprehension. _

_When they arrived at the house the party was obviously already in full swing. Lisa looked at the crush of students and felt her stomach tighten. She was no good at gatherings of any kind, never had been; she hated the small talk and social niceties, it was a task as incomprehensible to her as her grandmother's cooking lessons, conducted mostly in Yiddish with a lot of clucking and tsking and raised eyebrows. She smoothed the front of her blouse and wished she hadn't agreed to this. It was going to end in disaster of some kind, she knew it._

_The rooms were wall to wall people, most of them shouting to be heard over the music. Someone had obviously decided to test the stereo's capacity by cranking Billy Squier's 'Stroke Me' to the max. The pungent smell of marijuana drifted in thick banks through the hall, and in one corner she saw a mirror with lines of white powder laid out on it. Several of the partygoers passed around a small vial._

"_We came to dance!" A sorority girl confronted one of the boys clustered by the stereo. "All you guys ever listen to is this crap!" She pouted. "How about the B-52s or the Police?" The boy rolled his eyes._

"_There isn't enough room," he said, but he began to dig through the rack of LPs and 45s by the turntable. "If I find something to play will you dance with me?"_

"_Come on," Claire said. She towed Lisa through the crowd and headed for the kitchen. "He'll be at the poker game."_

"_I'm not walking in there!" Lisa pulled her hand free. "This was a mistake. I'm going back to the dorm."_

"_You are such a dork," Claire snapped. "Just take a look, that's all you have to do!"_

"'_Have to do'?" Lisa gave Claire a narrow stare, suspicion blooming. "What's that supposed to mean?"_

"_Nothing." Claire peered into the kitchen. "He's here," she said. "See for yourself."_

_Lisa stayed where she was. "This is a setup, isn't it?" Humiliation burned through to indignant fury. "So what's next, I get a bucket of water dumped on my head, or the doorknob has Vaseline on it? I bet the toilet's Saran-wrapped too." She turned on her heel and pushed blindly through the hallway, uncaring who she trampled. As she entered the living room a song began to play, one she recognized from her older sister's Stones collection. A chorus of desultory cheers and boos greeted the change of music, but most people began to dance. Trapped for the moment, Lisa stared at the door and tried to figure out a way to get to through the mass of gyrating bodies._

_Later she could never be quite sure what made her turn around. A sense of presence, of warmth, a warning—maybe all three, maybe something else. But turn she did, and there he stood: lean, lanky, dressed in the grad student's uniform of concert tee shirt, jeans and sneaks. His blue eyes were bright in a bony face just short of handsome. She looked down, ashamed of her impulsive flight and angry at him for causing it in the first place. When she started to turn away he caught her hand in his. It was so unexpected she jumped and swung her gaze upward in astonishment. His fingers were long and rough with calluses on the tips, his palms cool and dry, but she could feel his pulse jumping. Slowly he backed her into the hall, his gaze steady on hers. Some dim part of her brain heard the song playing in the background, scratchy and raucous but compelling. "Let's spend the night together . . . now I need you more than ever . . ."_

_He looked down at her, something not quite defiance or a dare or even amusement in those fierce, brilliant eyes. She couldn't believe he was actually thinking of taking her upstairs—and he was, she knew it as surely as she knew two-thirds of the people in the house were stoned out of their gourds. She should be furious with him, should march out the door in righteous anger, but the feel of that big hand holding hers seemed to melt away her resistance. _

_She didn't remember following him. Only the words of the song trailed after them into the looming darkness. He chose a door and pushed it open. By some miracle the room was empty. Her mind barely registered that fact before she was being kissed, and very thoroughly too. He tasted of beer and tobacco and something spicy; it suited him. Her hands crept to the nape of his neck. He had guy hair, a shock of coarse thick waves that made her toes curl. __His__ hands were already beneath her blouse, unhooking her bra. _Wow, fast worker_ was her last coherent thought._

_Later she would remember the rest of that first time in lightning flashes: a fiery mouth devouring her whole, hot breath on her breast, a harsh, triumphant growl as he entered her. She struggled to do more than simply hang on, her hands clutching his shoulders as they bucked and writhed together. For the first time she wasn't in control of the situation. She'd always chosen guys who would respect her wishes and make breakfast the next morning. House had been utterly different, as opposite her usual partner as night was from day._

_**  
_

_It was like being harpooned by a raging monk,_ Cuddy thought, and smiled at the line she'd stolen from a book she'd read the summer before college. She rocked the porch swing with another little push from her foot. _And he surprised me, even after I had him pegged as a selfish asshole._

_**  
_

_He came long before she ever had a chance. She pushed her face into the pillow as he groaned and thrust and shrank. When he moved off her she rolled on her side, intent on getting the hell out of there. _So it was just a stupid prank after all,_ she thought, and gasped when he gripped her arms and pulled her back under him._

"_No," he said. She stared at him, bewildered and deeply hurt and now a little afraid. His touch grew gentle, his hands sliding over her skin. "Stay," he whispered, and lowered his head to kiss her, a tender, lengthy exploration that left them both breathless. He nuzzled her throat; his mouth slid lower, and then lower. His fingers stroked her belly, moved to the join of her thighs. She tensed as he parted folds of hot, moist flesh and found her clitoris, still engorged and throbbing. His teeth grazed her right nipple as he rolled her between thumb and forefinger. When she felt the first tremors of climax he rubbed those callused fingertips over her center, brought her to the trembling brink and paused. _

"_Please__," she moaned, lifting her hips, and heard him chuckle as he pushed her over the edge. She was swept up in a silent explosion of sweetness. He didn't stop, though, just kept on using those long fingers to move her past the first orgasm and into another so powerful she cried out, unable to contain the pleasure flooding every cell of her body. Slowly she came back to earth, felt him stroking her skin, murmuring soft words in her hair. Vaguely she was aware he had nudged her thighs apart. When he slid inside her she knew a nebulous sort of amazement that he was hard again so quickly, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except the pleasure that began anew, building on the climax she'd just barely survived._

_**_

_After the third time neither one of us could stand, let alone walk. _ Cuddy smiled a little. _But I woke up alone. No surprises there. _She had slipped away in the early hours, tiptoeing past sleeping couples and passed-out partyers, and made it back to the dorm unnoticed. Not that everyone didn't know what had happened; apparently House bragged about his conquest to anyone who would listen. She pretended it didn't matter and presented a casual front to those who ridiculed her for her bad taste in men. Still, she had expected him to ignore her, or at least act like she didn't exist once the thrill of victory faded. And yet he hadn't—not exactly. For the rest of the year she was pranked, usually when she least expected it. But the nature of the pranks had changed. There was a caress within the petty meanness. A dozen dissected fetal pigs filled her backpack, along with a single long-stemmed rose; her meal pass went missing for a week, then reappeared completely used up, stapled to a bag filled with one dozen of a local bakery's plate-sized oatmeal-raisin cookies.

_Of course they all had a bite taken out of them._ Cuddy set down her empty bottle and stretched a bit. _The prick. Hope it gave him a bellyache. _She listened to the creak of the swing, the sigh of the wind in the trees. _God, House. What did you do to yourself that they won't let me see you? _She bit her lip. _Please hang on. Please. _


	14. Chapter 14

October 8th

It is just past midnight. Greg is waiting outside the kitchen delivery entrance as directed, scanning the parking lot. It's cool, a little breezy, clouds playing tag with the waning moon overhead; the heat wave has finally broken, but the drought continues. He doesn't care about that, though. He's being busted out of stir, and he can hardly wait to see where they're going. The plan had been presented to him in a pain management session a few days ago.

(_"We need to convene a war council," Gene says. In his white shirt and olive Dockers he looks responsible enough, but his dark eyes gleam with something akin to mischief. "Not here, though. You up for a long weekend out?")_

And so here he stands, wondering what will happen next. _Maybe Goldman'll get my bike out of storage_, he thinks. _We could ride down to AC. Total road trip. _He can think of nothing but the delight of flying away from this place, the bike and the highway and the wind all making a music that numbs and releases him at the same time.

There is movement at the far edge of the parking lot. It looks like . . . a minivan: a champagne-colored, boxy Honda Odyssey, the most boring vehicle made outside of a Volvo station wagon. He watches as it comes closer. When it passes under a light he sees someone in the front passenger seat. It is Sarah Goldman.

_Aw, __man__._ Disappointment chokes him for a moment. No guy weekend, no having fun, no nothing. He'll be stuck in a therapy session for the entire three days. It'll be like watching paint dry while ducks nibble at him, and any other metaphor of supreme ennui he can think of.

The van pulls up beside him. Now he can see Gene is driving. Sarah opens the door and hops out. She's in jeans, a sweater and battered Doc Martens, her curls pulled back in a loose untidy braid. "You coming with?" she asks, smiling. "Front or back seat?" He gives her his best intimidating glare.

"I'm not going anywhere in that breeder-mobile," he says. "Especially if you're along for the ride."

"If you don't come with us, you stay here," she says. Her tone is casual, as if it doesn't matter to her whether he goes or not. He tries to gauge her sincerity; unfortunately it's too dark to read her eyes. Her body language is relaxed, but she's smart enough to keep it that way.

"Where are we going?" he asks. It's the one thing Gene wouldn't tell him. Sarah starts singing under her breath. He can just catch the words: "Should I stay or should I go . . ."

"Haha, that's absolutely hilarious," he says sourly. The thought of staying is unbearable; even a weekend spent in someone's unfinished basement in Parsippany would be preferable to the alternative. "Shotgun," he says at last, and steps forward as Sarah opens the sliding door.

Actually the bench seat is fairly comfortable. There are pillows and cushions and a blanket stacked on one side for him to use, and the wayback holds a cooler filled with bottles of soda and tea, assorted hoagies, fruit, Tastykakes, and a dozen Dove chocolate bars, all within easy reach. As he rummages for something to eat he notices several guitar cases stacked side by side next to some overnight bags. _Didn't know either one of them could play. _It's intriguing, but he sets the speculation aside for the time being, snags a Coke and half a hoagie, unwraps the sandwich and takes a huge bite. The rich taste of Boar's Head Cajun roast beef, horseradish, onions and fresh Amoroso roll fills his mouth. It is all he can do not to groan out loud in ecstasy.

"Hand me up a ginger beer please," Sarah says. She looks at him and chuckles, a soft, sweet sound with no malice in it. "Nice change from cafeteria stodge, huh?"

"Mm-hm," he mumbles around the food, and finds her some Reed's Premium. A few minutes of amiable confusion pass as food is parceled out, then everyone settles into the serious business of enjoying an illicit midnight snack. After a moment music plays, some kind of shoutin' blues, the real thing—Bessie Smith, if he had to hazard a guess. It's perfect. He relaxes against the seat, munching the hoagie and watching the streetlights go by. Something deep inside him slowly unclenches. He ignores the sensation, but feels it all the same, knows where it comes from: a childhood filled with long drives or flights between military bases, cooped up with two adults who expected him to be unseen and unheard. Those journeys were not pleasant experiences, and that's the understatement of the century.

"You okay back there?" Gene asks after a time. Greg finishes off the heel of the hoagie and washes it down with Coke, grabs a package of butterscotch krimpets.

"Peachy keen," he says, a little surprised to find he really means it. "Please tell me you don't own this beater." He tears open the wrapper and eats one krimpet whole, just for the sugar rush.

"Nah, we rented it," Gene says. Tried for a Navigator, but this was all they had. Anyway, it's a lot more comfortable than Sarah's pickup."

"Don't make fun of Minnie Lou," Sarah says. "She's a good truck."

"Yeah, if you don't mind having your fillings rattled right out of your teeth," Gene says, and laughs when Sarah makes a face at him.

"Shut up! I know she needs new shocks!"

"Don't we all," Greg says, and is surprised when they both laugh. He feels a dangerous sense of comraderie and pushes it away. "Why Minnie Lou?"

"It's from a song by John Flynn," Sarah says. "I'll play it for you when we get to—where we're going."

He hears the hasty amendment in her sentence and jumps on it. "Where are we going? AC? Philly? New York?"

Sarah turns to him. He can see she's smiling a little, but her expression is not one of amusement; she looks . . . intent, for lack of a better word. "You tell me," she says. It's another surprise; most people can't bear his continual deducing. They don't understand it's not something he can turn on and off; it's just always there, a part of who he is. No one has ever invited him to do this outside of work, because no one ever wants all that deductive power aimed at them. He searches her features, looking for some sign of condescension or trickery, but she simply sits there, waiting for him to start. He settles back, licking the sweet icing off his fingers first.

"Tank's topped off," he begins. "Haven't seen any signs leading to 95 so no big cities in either direction on the Corridor. And there's no shore gear in the back. That means we're not having Mack and Manco on the boardwalk." He stops to give a loud belch, but receives no reprimand, no prissy sigh of exasperation. He peers at Sarah to get her reaction.

"Good so far," she says, apparently unfazed. _Right—she has older brothers,_ he thinks._ Bet she's seen every Three Stooges short ever made, too. _

"We're not going north, east or south. That leaves west," he says. "We're above the southern tier, so . . . Finger Lakes?" He shakes his head. "Too far away for a three-day weekend." He considers the available evidence. "You've got a place in the country," he says. "Probably an old house you bought when real estate was still reasonably priced."

"Can I just say that if either one of us ever gets sick, we want you as our diagnostician?" Gene says after a moment's silence. He gives Greg a grin via the rear view mirror. It softens his angular features, makes him look less like a mercenary and more like a young guy on a night out.

"If your diagnosis is as easy as this was, you won't have to worry," Greg says. He looks at Sarah. "You're taking me to some moldering heap in the middle of nowhere?"

"'Moldering heap' might be going a little far," Sarah says. "Definitely a fixer-upper, though. We bought it five years ago."

"Just after you got married," he says. "Don't tell me it was something as sickening as a honeymoon present."

"Not exactly. More like an escape hatch. We see a lot of misery on a daily basis," Gene says in his quiet way. "You probably understand that better than most. When you deal with so much pain, you need somewhere to decompress. We're both farm kids, so it seemed natural to find a place in the country to make our own."

"It's come a long way since we got it," Sarah says. There is a sense of satisfaction in her words. "That first winter, hauling all the manure out of the bottom floor—"

"Wait a minute—WHAT?" Greg sits up, transfixed by what she's just said. "THERE WAS COW SHIT INSIDE THE HOUSE?!"

"Yeah, because there were cows inside the house," Sarah says. "When the farmstead was built the animals were stabled on the first floor, and everyone who lived there after the original owners did the same. It's very practical technology, actually. The heat from their bodies and the manure rises and becomes a secondary source of warmth for the upper floors."

"Oh my god," Greg groans. "You're gonna make me sleep with goats to keep warm!"

Both of them laugh—real laughter, but still without that tinge of malice he's come to associate with other people's amusement.

"You make that sound like a bad thing," Sarah says, and glances at Gene. "You get used to it."

"Thanks," Gene says, his voice dry. He takes Sarah's ginger beer and downs a swig.

"Ewww," Greg says, and pretends to shudder. "Goats and now backwash. You two really are rednecks."

"Born and bred," Sarah says, unperturbed. "We've had a lot of fun renovating. The house, not each other." Gene laughs and she flashes a smile at him.

"You didn't call someone in to do it for you?" Greg is intrigued by this attitude. "Why not? You've got the money, you're both DINKs."

"That's true," Gene says. "But a home you make yourself. Eventually we'll live there year-round, so we want it to suit our tastes."

"Besides, there are so many places in the area where you can get recycled timber and just about anything else you need," Sarah says. She sounds enthusiastic, her soft voice bright with what Greg perceives as happiness. "We found the perfect front door last month at an auction. And a friend of ours is doing the interior doors for us from old barn timbers. It's the coolest design, wait till you see it."

The conversation continues in this way for some time, an easy give and take that baffles him until he comprehends what's going on. They're treating him like he's a friend. It's an unsettling revelation. He's not sure what to do about it, because this doesn't fit any standard response he gets from people once they've been around him longer than thirty seconds. They actually seem to _like_ him. It's unfathomable. _It's just an act_, he decides. _They can't keep it up forever. Sooner or later they'll show me what they really want, and it'll be business as usual._

Still, it's pleasant to sit in the darkness, warm, full and relaxed, engaging in desultory talk with two intelligent, well-reasoned people who give as good as they get and enjoy doing so. He closes his eyes, rests his head on the cushion wedged against the window, and drifts into a light doze.


	15. Chapter 15

_(A/N: this house does exist, just not in upstate New York. --B)_

"Hey, we're here!"

He is jolted awake by Gene's cheerful voice. For one moment he's eight years old and waking up after yet another interminable drive to the next base, and his mother is shaking him gently saying _Don't keep your father waiting, Gregory. _ He struggles to sit up and winces as his leg spasms. _Too long in one position_, he thinks.

"Take your time," Sarah says. He glares at her but she isn't even looking at him, she's unstrapping her safety harness. He waits for her to offer help or sympathy or some patronizing comment, but she doesn't. She opens the door and gets out, stretches, rubs her arm—the one with the scars. So she's stiff, maybe hurting a little too. For some reason that reassures him. He pushes the button and gets out as the door slides open.

"If you'll wait here," Gene is saying, "I'll go turn on the lights, then we can bring things in and get settled." He trots off into the darkness. It's Stygian without the ubiquitous sodium vapor glow of the city. Greg hears the jingle of keys, a door opening with a creak. Then light blooms into being, streaming golden from the doorway, with Gene standing in the middle of it saying "Come on in, I'll bring the bags if you two will grab the other stuff."

Greg takes the cooler, knowing he can manage that much, and goes up the walk. In place of steps there's a low-angle stone ramp, easily navigated. He enters the house and stops, astonished.

There is only one word adequate to describe what he's seeing, and that is _amazing_. No, that would be two words: _utterly amazing. _The entire interior is timberframe construction, vaulted ceilings supported by enormous hand-cut beams, peeled logs and barn timbers embedded in plastered walls. Everything seems to be recycled, fitted without being shaped or changed much; the result is organic and flowing, like the interior of the world's biggest, coolest treehouse. He half-expects hobbits to appear around a corner. There's a massive stone fireplace in the center of the room with tapestry-covered chairs and a sofa grouped around it; an enormous stack of firewood and kindling is piled in a niche beside the hearth. Oriental carpets cover the wide-plank floors, and one entire wall is filled with shelves of books, tapes, DVDs, a game system and an LCD TV screen. The atmosphere is one of welcome, of unobtrusive and comfortable invitation. "You—you did all this yourselves?" He can barely keep the squeak out of his voice.

"No way, we had plenty of help," Sarah says. She sets the guitar cases on the sofa. "Gene's getting the central heat going. Tomorrow we'll stack the fireplaces. It can be pretty cold here even with the furnace, the fires make it a little more comfy."

"Where am I sleeping?" he asks. "We can stay warm if we all bunk together, you know. Like saving water by showering with a friend."

"We made the downstairs parlor into a spare bedroom and study," she says, her tone dry. "Thanks for the offer, but one pirate in my life is more than sufficient." She leads him to the far end of the main room and opens a door. It swings out in an odd way. Greg looks at it closely. There are no metal hinges. There's also no lock, just a latch.

"A closed door means no one enters without permission," Sarah says quietly. "Privacy is respected here. No exceptions."

He puts his hand on the smooth wood, gives it a slight push. It moves easily without sound. That clenching feeling is back.

"You are a complete idiot," Amber says. She is standing next to the bed, arms folded, obviously disgusted. "How can you trust these two morons?"

"Greg," Sarah says. He doesn't look at her. "If you want to spend the whole weekend in this room with the door closed, you can. Put a chair under the latch, if you like. No one will make you do what you don't want to do."

"You say that now," he snarls, and winces at the resentful whine in his voice. Amber laughs, her pale eyes gleaming with malicious amusement.

"I say what I mean," Sarah says, and offers him a slight smile. She's tired and hurting, he can see it in the way she has her scarred arm folded against her middle. Yet she doesn't tax him with it, she simply stands there. He's ashamed of himself for slapping at her, but he won't apologize. Instead he looks around the room. It's small but cozy, not cramped. There's a full-size bed with a thick handmade comforter and pillows, a stack of books on the night stand with a carafe of water, and what looks like a new bathrobe laid out ready for use.

"There's a half-bath in the mudroom," she's saying. "From here you go straight ahead through the kitchen to the back door. Wear socks, the floors are cold at night." She turns to go. "If you need anything, hit the intercom in the living room. I'm a light sleeper, I'll hear you." She pauses. "Our home is your home," she says with that slight smile, and closes the door behind her. Once she is gone he sits on the bed. It sinks just enough to let him know it's firm but not rock-hard. He passes a hand over his face. _This is a mistake,_ he thinks. Above him there's a click, then a rush of stale-smelling warm air—the central heating Sarah spoke of finally kicking in. He realizes suddenly he's cold and tired and ready to find some oblivion.

"Good luck finding anything besides nightmares in this hellhole," Amber says. She sits next to him. "Take the van and leave. Do it now."

"Shut up," he says, gritting his teeth. "Leave me the hell alone for once, I don't need you here!"

Silence falls. He looks around and finds he is alone—well, he always was, but there's no figment waiting to torment him. He can feel her presence though, resentful and mocking. Not gone, simply invisible to him now as well as everyone else. _Great,_ he thinks. _I've graduated from a fake ghost to a pooka. Way to go, House._

Slowly he gets ready for bed. The bathrobe is a little large but fits okay; the flannel is soft against his skin. He can hear the other two moving around upstairs, obviously putting things away. He goes to the door, opens it and peers out. The living room is lit by a single lamp, just enough light to get him to the kitchen without bumping into furniture. He heads for the bathroom, toiletry case in hand.

Half an hour later he's cleaned up, medicated and lying in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. The bed is sheer heaven, with crisp clean sheets and the comforter providing warmth, and extra pillows to support his leg. Unfortunately the hyper-vigilant child within has taken over. He can hear every creak and groan the old house makes. It's been a long time since he's had to force himself to adapt to a new environment; he's out of practice. Now he can't relax. He keeps waiting for that door to open, for someone to come in and—do what? He's not sure, but whatever will happen, it won't be good.

After a while he gives in and turns on the light, pushes the bedclothes aside and sits up, rubbing his thigh. He checks the books on the stand—all fiction, a mix of romance, mystery, fantasy and horror, none of which he has the least desire to read. He doesn't have his GameBoy, it's in storage, as is his guitar—He stops.

The cases are still on the sofa. He picks one, lays it out, opens it with care. It's a Martin six-string. There's an apartment mute in the accessories compartment. He limps back to his room and sits in the big easy chair by the tile-lined fireplace. After a bit of tuning he starts to play, just noodling at first, then songs he knows, a few he's written. Slowly the tight place within loosens just a little. Music always eases him; it's gotten him through some of the worst times of his life, even if it was a tune he played on an imaginary piano or simply hummed in his head.

After an hour or so he stands up, sets the guitar in the chair so it won't fall, and climbs into bed. Once he's ensconced he turns out the light and closes his eyes, letting his mind and body sink into sleep. His last thought is of the music vibrating through his flesh, soothing as a lullaby.


	16. Chapter 16

_(A/N: the fork-hurling incident really happened. It is related in this chapter as an _in memoriam _for my mother, who passed away September 14th, and who in her youth tried to skewer her half-brother during a dinnertime 'discussion'.)_

October 9th

When he wakes, sunlight fills the room. He squints and looks around for the blind pull, only to realize there are no blinds, only curtains. They are not traverse drapes; he'll have to close them by hand, which means getting out of bed. With a muttered curse he sits up, rubs his eyes. Gradually he hears the sound of life outside his room—voices, the clatter of pots and pans, the creak of floorboards. Someone passes by the door and he freezes, waiting for it to open and whoever it is (_his father_) to come barging in, demanding he attend breakfast. Nothing happens. The footsteps fade, leaving him alone in the silent sunshine.

After a time he gets up and changes into clean clothes—jeans, sweatshirt, thick socks, trainers. He takes up his cane, passes by the guitar, looks down at it. He picks it up and goes into the living room, replaces it in its case.

"Good morning." Sarah stands in the kitchen doorway. She has a voluminous white cook's apron tied over her tee shirt and sweats, clutching a pot holder. "How did you like the Martin? She's a lovely instrument."

"Did you hear me playing last night?" he asks. She looks anxious.

"A little," she says. "I hope you don't mind. It was—you're an excellent musician." She pauses, the pot holder twisting a bit in her hands. "We had the door open to get the room warmed up—otherwise I wouldn't—I didn't mean to intrude."

"Don't worry about it," he says, amused by her embarrassment. _Interesting that she was awake, but Goldman apparently wasn't. _"What's for breakfast?"

"Sausage, eggs, toast, coffee," she says, brightening. "There's homemade peach jam."

It's the best morning meal he's had in ages. The woman can cook—she's nearly as good as Wilson, and that's saying something. She looks completely at home frying sausage patties, eggs over easy and making toast. Gene is nowhere to be found.

"He's gone off to town for some supplies," Sarah says when questioned. "He'll be back shortly. It's a ten-minute drive one-way."

"Let me guess—blinking yellow light at the crossroads, post office, beauty parlor, feed store and gas station grocery," Greg says. Sarah laughs, a warm sweet sound he's come to enjoy, though he would never admit it.

"Almost right. There's no beauty parlor, but you can get your dog flea-dipped at the feed store."

"Same thing," he says, just to make her laugh again. "So, what's the agenda for the day? Interrogation from ten to twelve, followed by rubber hose beatings through the afternoon?"

"That requires way too much energy," Sarah says, scraping the skillet clean. "I don't have anything planned. Gene wants to go to the game tonight, but if you don't—"

"Game?" He puts down his coffee cup. "What kind of game?"

"It's Friday," she says as if it's self-evident. When he shakes his head she elaborates. "You know, football. The local high school's playing tonight."

"You have someone on the team?" he asks.

"Yeah, our neighbor's kid," she says. "Should be pretty good, it's a grudge match with another local school. If you don't—"

"Pizza and beer afterward?" he asks. "I'll go for that, not to see a bunch of lame-ass spoiled brats run up and down a field."

Sarah puts a hand on her hip and gives him what can only be described as a mom look. "You just stuffed yourself full of breakfast and you're already asking about dinner," she says. She sniffs, her sea-green eyes twinkling. "Men. You're nothing but walking stomachs."

"Oh, we've got other parts too," he says blandly, and can't help but grin when she turns away, blushing.

Gene comes in a few minutes later, his arms full of groceries. "Annie's got Winesaps and Northern Spys in," he tells Sarah after he kisses her. "Good morning," he says to Greg, setting bags on the counter. "Sleep well?"

"Like a rock," Greg says. He finishes off his coffee and gets up, leaving his dirty plate on the counter just to see what Sarah will do.

"Anyone who doesn't wash up pays for dinner tonight," she says. "Your choice."

"That's no choice at all!" he says in protest. Gene laughs.

"Don't let her snow you," he says. "She's got a dishwasher."

"It's all about doing the right thing," Sarah says, her voice rising above Gene's. She is trying hard not to laugh.

"You must do ze vashink opp," Gene intones, in a really horrible German accent loaded with scenery-chewing menace. "Ve haf vays of making you do ze correkt t'ing . . ."

"Aha! I knew it!" Greg says, his tone one of triumph. "I knew your wife's real name was Ilsa!" He gives Sarah the Nazi salute. "I hear but disobey, She-Wolf of the SS!"

"Fine!" Sarah says, and snatches up the plate as he and Gene break down laughing. She marches to the other end of the kitchen, opens the door to what is unmistakably a dishwasher, jams the plate in, and shuts the door. "I just did the dishes. You two are paying for dinner." She folds her arms and glares at them, lips twitching. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Feisty little minx when you get her riled, isn't she?" Greg says to Gene.

"You have no idea," Gene says, chuckling. "She threw a fork at her brother once during a fight. It went through his hair and stuck in the wall behind him. She had to hide out in a treehouse for the rest of the day."

"You—" Sarah splutters. "I—OOOHH!"

"It's only the truth," Gene says, all innocence, and snitches a sausage from her plate. "Got you some Atomic Fireballs," he says in a placating tone, munching the sausage.

Sarah pushes him away from her breakfast, then pulls a grocery sack toward her and peers inside. "How much?" she demands.

"A whole bag," he says. "All yours."

"What are you, five years old?" Greg says. He's amused by the way she pulls the candy from the sack. _Deprivation issues,_ he thinks, and is a little surprised by the sadness the thought causes.

"There's no problem that can't be solved by a big enough sugar rush," she says, and opens the bag. She dumps the candy into a bowl.

"I always heard it was a suitable application of high explosives," Greg says as Sarah sets the bowl on the table. She and Gene both laugh, and again Greg is surprised by their willingness to include him in their teasing. It isn't as if he hasn't had moments like this with Wilson, or Stacy—but that's all they were, moments. He's never met any couple who sustained this kind of openness with each other or anyone else for so long. It's weird. It can't be real. It should be corny and unbearably sentimental and excruciating to the nth degree . . . but somehow, it isn't. To his dismay, he's envious of what they have. And that makes everything far worse, because he'll never have what they have. Never.

"At least you know that much," Amber whispers in his ear. "Don't forget it."

"I'm going to the orchard," Sarah is saying. She looks at Greg. "Wanna go with? It's just a short ride down the road."

"I'm not really up for a jaunt in a bucket of bolts," he says. She smiles.

"We'll take the van," she says. "Minnie's over at Bob's garage getting her oil changed and new spark plugs put in."

"A farm girl like you should be able to do that stuff herself," he says.

"I can, but Bob needs the work. He'll check the engine for me while he's fixing things," she says. "Got a gasket that's leaking."

"You should see a doctor for that," he says, unable to pass up the cheap shot. Sarah rolls her eyes.

"There you stand, the original laugh riot. Anyway, if you just want to hang out here that's okay."

He ends up going with her because it's something to do, and he's not ready to be at loose ends in the house just yet. As they start out he looks around. It's really gorgeous here. The trees are just past prime, but still bright. The mountains look like a Persian carpet, with knots of color amid the deep green pines. A cascade of lambent yellow leaves falls over them as they drive through a wooded section of road. It's quiet, with only the sound of the engine and occasional birdsong breaking the silence. Strangely, he doesn't feel a need to fill the emptiness with small talk. He watches the scenery go by, enjoying the beauty of it.

The orchard has a roadside stand, worn and shabby but crammed full of produce. There are apples of every color and size, as well as pumpkins, squash, and Indian corn.

"Nice t'meetcha," Annie says when she is introduced to Greg. Her faded blue eyes take him in head to toe. It's a countrywoman's evaluation, not unfriendly but also not missing a single flaw, as if he's some animal on the auction block. He feels himself bristling, ready to battle. To his surprise she hands him an apple.

"Do I look like a roast pig to you?" he snaps. Annie's eyes widen—and then she laughs. It's a full-on belly laugh full of genuine amusement.

"Too skinny," she says after a few moments. "You could use a little sweetnin'." She nods at the apple. "Enjoy," she says, and goes over to Sarah, who seems to be oblivious to their exchange. He bites into the fruit. Tart-sweet flavor bursts out of crisp flesh. The juice drips down his chin; he wipes it with his hand and licks it off his skin, reluctant to let any of it go to waste. Annie catches his eye and gives him a wink. He swallows the bite of apple and makes a face at her. She laughs again and turns to the next customer.

"Is there something in the water around here?" he asks on the way home. The back of the van is laden with enough apples to feed a small army. Sarah glances at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your neighbors are unnatural," he says. "They don't react like normal people."

"You're basing this observation on the one person you've met? Interesting." Sarah slows down to ease the van over a washboard rut. "What's your definition of normal?"

"That woman. She . . ." He doesn't want to say this, but he brought it up. "She was nice."

"Why wouldn't she be?" Sarah's reasonable tone annoys him.

"People aren't nice," he says. "They're evil bitches who lie the same way they breathe. If they're nice it's because they want something." He expects her to offer platitudes or the standard "Why would you say that?" or "Are you crazy?" or even "Tell me how that makes you feel." Instead she says nothing.

"Well?" he says after a few moments.

"Well what?"

"Aren't you going to contradict me? Ask me how I came to that conclusion? Tell me I'm full of shit? That the world is a great place and I'm an asshole for saying it isn't?"

"The world isn't a great place," she says. "It has its moments, but it's mostly dangerous, antagonistic and needlessly cruel."

Her answer shocks him into silence. She looks at him again. "It surprises you I would say that," she says.

"You don't act like you believe what you just said," he says.

"Oh, I believe it all right." She sounds matter-of-fact. "I just choose not to let that knowledge dictate my actions."

"Choice," he mutters under his breath. "Your favorite word."

"Yeah, it is," she says. "Finding out I have choices set me free."

"And that's what this is all about?" he sneers. "Telling me I just have to choose life and everything will be all wuvvy-duvvy? Yeah, right."

"You think it's that way for me?" she asks. He stares at her in astonishment.

"You're happily married, you've got a great career, you've got this—" He waves a hand at the peaceful scene around them. "You're telling me this isn't perfect?"

She pulls the van to the side of the road, even though there's obviously no traffic for miles around, and turns to face him. Her expression is dead serious. "Nothing and no one is perfect," she says in a fierce tone he has never heard from her before. "Not me, Gene, you, or anyone else. And thank god, we don't have to be. Life is not all or nothing, Greg. It's not about perfection or lack thereof. It's about finding joy in the moment and learning to endure the inevitable shit that comes your way with whatever grace you can muster. Some days you do a great job. Other days you suck. And it's okay." She takes a deep breath. "Someone told you otherwise. They were wrong."

"No they weren't," he says. The rage flares within, brittle and bitter and icy cold. "If you read my file—"

"I know what your file says," she says. "I want _you_ to tell me what's going on. Not the tests, not the consultants, not someone else. _You_. And it doesn't matter to me if your actions haven't been perfect or you think you're fatally flawed and not worth a plugged nickel as a consequence. I still want to hear what you have to say, and always will."

He is silent, unsure what his reply should be. She glances in the rear view mirror, pulls into the road once more.

"Look, it's simple. If you want to talk, I'll listen," she says. "It doesn't have to be right now, or this weekend, or even this year. And if you decide never to say another word, that's okay. But if you want to to take back your work and your life, this is the best option. I know from personal experience."

"What you really mean is if I don't cooperate, I'll be stuck in the nut house for the rest of my life," he says.

"What I mean is exactly what I said," she says. "I don't play games with the truth."

He snorts. "That's bullshit. You're telling me you and your hubby didn't have this little getaway escapade planned weeks ago? Turning a downstairs study into a bedroom for someone who has trouble climbing stairs? We won't even get into wrangling permission from Admin to spring me from the joint, that didn't happen overnight. All to get me to talk so you have another exemplary case file in your spotless little career. You must really be desperate."

She brings the van to a sudden stop. Apples roll everywhere.

"'Exemplary case file'? 'Spotless career?'" She stares at him as if he's grown two heads. "Where the _fuck_ did you ever get that idea? And no, we didn't plan this trip weeks in advance!"

He ignores the latter part of her reply, it's so obviously a lie. "You don't think patients talk about their doctors? You've got quite a reputation on the ward. Miracle Worker, I think that one's most popular." He hurls the words at her, wanting to wound, to blast her wide open. "That's how you got me. You only take the hopeless causes, the ones no one wants because they're too broken. Little Miss Perfect steps in and fixes them all nice and shiny-happy and earns another brownie point with her peers."

"None of that is true." Her face is pale enough to make her freckles stand out. "I'll tell you what a damn miracle worker I am." Her voice is shaking, just a tiny little tremor, but he can hear it. "A few years ago there was a young guy, suicidal, bipolar, trying to come to terms with the fact that he was gay and his family thought he was possessed by demons." She stops; with a visible effort she makes herself continue. "He was assigned to me in rehab. We were making good progress when he . . . he came on to me. I had to say no, but I was . . . harsh, way too hard on him because I thought it would help." She paused. "And because I used to have issues with that sort of thing. Anyway, they found him that night, hiding in the janitor's closet. He'd managed to get his hands on a set of keys. He drank a bottle of drain cleaner. It took him three days to die in agony from peritonitis. His death is on my head because I am not a miracle worker or perfect, not anywhere close. I make plenty of mistakes, and I made a really stupid one with him." She looks at him. Her eyes are glittering with tears, but they don't fall. "I didn't take you on as a lost cause because you are not hopeless, far from it. I'd like to help you because I can see the potential for you to live a good life. I want that for you. But it's what you want that matters. I will work with you to find what you want, if you choose to do so. That's it. That's my agenda."

He has to say it, even though he knows it's way past mean, even for him. "Now I _really_ don't want you crawling around inside my head."

She looks away. Her hands tighten on the wheel and he braces for retaliation. Instead she simply says "Okay. When we go back to Mayfield I'll find you another doctor."

"But until then I'm stuck with you," he says. She nods.

"Afraid so."

He has nothing to say to that; all his ammunition is spent, for now at least. Sarah starts the van moving. Her hands are trembling and she won't look at him. Part of him celebrates his victory in shattering her unnatural good nature; another part is ashamed of causing her pain.

"You did what you had to do," Amber says. He catches a glimpse of her in the side view mirror. She holds up an apple, bites into it and vanishes. Her laughter echoes in his mind, faint and derisive.

When they get to the house Sarah goes to the wayback to gather up the scattered apples. He doesn't offer to help, only limps inside and into his room, closing the door behind him. It stays closed for the rest of the afternoon.


	17. Chapter 17

When he comes out of the bedroom, it's late afternoon. The sun is close to setting; slanting rays fill the living room with the day's final light. There's a fire going in the big stone fireplace. He takes a chair next to it and watches the flames, his mind still a little muzzy from a troubled sleep.

"Hey." Gene drops into the chair opposite his. Greg waits for the inevitable ''how dare you be mean to my wife' speech, bracing for a battle.

"Going to the game tonight?" Gene stretches his long frame, joints popping. Greg stares at him.

"You're not taking me to task for picking on your little POA?" he asks. Gene gives him a mild look.

"What goes on between you and Sarah is private," he says. Greg groans.

"Holy shit, are you people for real?" he snaps. "You both act like you're OD'ed on Prozac. It's sickening!"

"Just high on life," Gene says, and laughs at Greg's muttered curse. He folds his hands over his spare middle. "Sarah and I respect and trust each other. We do the same for others, unless they give us a good reason not to."

"You might as well wear a 'kick me' sign," Greg says in disgust. Gene shakes his head.

"Living in perpetual distrust is a waste of energy and time," he says. "It gives your power away to others who don't deserve to have it." He laughs. "God, I sound like Dwayne Dyer. You have my apologies."

Greg can't hide a snort of resentful amusement. "At least you know you're full of shit," he says.

"Yeah, but you need shit to make things grow," Gene says. "So, you going tonight? It's gonna be a good time. Double A teams, grudge match, cheerleaders, pizza and beer . . . what's not to like?"

"I thought we were supposed to have a war council," Greg says.

"That's tomorrow. I have a consultant coming in to talk with us, but he can't make it until Saturday afternoon." Gene gives Greg a searching look. "Worried?"

"What, that you're both trying to soften me up with a lot of New Age garbage about trust and respect so I'll agree to stay in treatment forever, thus keeping the general populace safe from my nasty grinchy self?" Greg shrugs. "Nah. Nothing to be concerned about there."

"You've got people to diagnose," Gene says. "We want you doing what you do best, but with as little cost to your personal life as possible."

"What personal life?" He regrets the words as soon as they come out, but Gene doesn't even give him an 'I told you so' look. He just says

"That's something you and Sarah can talk about if you like. I'm pain management, nothing more."

"Yeah, right," Greg mutters as Sarah comes into the room. She has on a shabby knitted sweater of dark blue over a white tee shirt, black jeans and an old pair of thick socks. Her hair is a wild tangle of auburn curls and her cheeks are flushed, but she seems calmer. She plops into the chair next to Greg's and looks at him.

"Did you get some rest?" she asks. There is real concern in her voice. He can't stand it.

"Stop pretending," he says, his voice rough with anger. "You could care less, admit it. Especially after I pissed you off."

"You didn't piss me off. Why do you think I'm pretending?" she asks. Gene starts to rise, but she glances at him. "If Greg says it's okay, you can stay," she says.

"What the fuck ever," Greg says, uncaring. "Stay, go, blah blah." He flaps his hand in Gene's general direction, then focuses on Sarah once more. "Everyone lies."

"I'm not everyone," she says. "When I ask if you're okay, I really want to know."

"So it's a diagnostic question to make sure you didn't fuck up, not because you care," he shoots back at her. "Come on, stop being such a goddamn hypocrite! This is one big long therapy session created to massage your wounded pride. You weren't getting anywhere in Mayfield, so you thought you'd pry more out of me here, where there are no time constraints or anyone to look over your shoulder at unethical practices. I found out what you were up to, so now you have to cover your ass, and it's pissing you off." He leans back. "Little Miss Perfect," he taunts, just to remind her of his previous statements, all of which he stands by. Silence falls in the big room.

"Christ on a freakin' crutch, you are one stubborn bastard," Sarah says after a time. There is no amusement in her voice, but he can feel her professional interest sharpening. He knows that feeling well and readies his defenses.

"Don't let her get to you," Amber whispers inside his mind. "Don't play her game."

"When I'm right, I'm right," he says.

"And when you're wrong, you're dead wrong and won't admit it," she says. "Fine. You say you want honesty. I've been honest with you from the beginning whether you believe me or not. You've done nothing but evade the truth. Now I want some truth from you. You owe me that much before you find another doctor." She watches him for a moment. "Why do you feel you're unlovable?"

Greg glances at Gene. "You can leave now," he says. Without a word Gene gets up and exits the room. Greg watches him go, a little nonplussed. No argument, no grumbling—just simple compliance. "What was the question?"

Sarah gives him the mom look. "Gregory."

"Yeah, okay." He searches for something that will mystify her so she'll leave him alone. "My real name is Crabby Appleton. Shh, don't tell anyone. State secret."

"Rotten to the core," she says. He's surprised someone her age would get the reference to an old cartoon. "You really believe that?"

"Everyone else does," he says. "Who am I to say them nay?"

"Who's everyone else?"

_Shit. She won't let it go, I'm stuck now till she's satisfied with my answers. This is the therapy motherlode. Yee-haw, or whatever it is they say in Oklahoma when they get excited._ "Let's see, how about, oh, seven billion people?"

"The entire world population thinks you're unlovable. Boy howdy, you do get around." She gives him a quizzical look. "Throw me a bone here. How about a name or two?"

"The team. They know it for sure," he says, and smirks. "My patients. Cu—" He stops.

"Doctor Cuddy," Sarah says. "Why did you hesitate?"

"I didn't," he says. "It was a hiccup."

"You believe Doctor Cuddy is the exception to the rule," she says. "Or maybe you hope she is."

"Oh, she has up front, personal, first-hand knowledge," he says. "We—she and I—you know."

"No, I don't. Tell me," she says. It's a request, not a demand.

"There was a night way back when. College," he says, and hopes if he gives her a few juicy tidbits she'll be satisfied. Even as he thinks it he's knows won't happen. "We did the horizontal mambo."

"So she was your girlfriend," Sarah says. "Obviously she thought at some point you were worth being with."

He shakes his head. "One night stand."

"Really?" She looks surprised. "I thought you were exes or something."

"Assumptions," he says. She nods.

"Point taken. So why didn't you date?"

"We're back to the same circular argument. I knew she wouldn't want to," he says. Sarah gives him a long, assessing look that makes him squirm.

"Look out," Amber hisses in his ear. "Here it comes. Don't give her anything more. Stop this NOW."

"You have this way of deciding what other people should think and feel about you," Sarah says after a time. "Did you ever ask her out?"

He shrugs. "What would be the point?"

"The point would be to discover what _she_ wanted. Maybe she would have liked to be seen with you."

He looks away, not knowing what to say that he hasn't said already.

"So you never asked her," Sarah says.

"I just said no." He's getting nervous now for some reason.

"Then how could you know what she wanted?" She raises an eyebrow. "You're psychic?"

"I don't—didn't have to ask!" he says, raising his voice to hide his slip.

"Why?" Sarah sounds genuinely interested in his reply. It infuriates him.

"Because I just know! How many times do I have to say it?"

"Sounds to me like someone important in your life frequently told you you were unlovable and you believed them," she says quietly. "Who was it?"

"No one!" He pushes out of the chair and limps to the fireplace, turning his back on her. "No one told me anything!"

"Showed you, then," she says. He stays silent. The clenching is back, worse than ever. "Who was it?"

She won't leave him alone until he gives her an answer. He falls back on an old lie, a convenient one that sounds plausible. "Oma," he says. "My grandmother."

"She lived near you?" Sarah sounds skeptical.

"Yes." He can't keep the defiance out of his voice. She won't buy it. He's right.

"It wasn't her." It's a statement of fact.

He grips the mantelpiece. "I just said—"

"It was someone closer to home," Sarah says. "Literally."

"You've already made up your mind it was my dad," Greg says, and winces at his blunder.

"Shut UP!" Amber yells at him. He ignores her. _Too late to stop now. What the hell, might as well go with it and fake like mad. _

"I didn't look up to or respect him," he says. "He wasn't important in my life. Problem solved. Session over."

"How could he not be important? He was your dad," she says.

"Did you respect _your_ father?" he asks, deliberately mocking her.

"No," she says simply. "I had my reasons, good ones. What were yours?"

"Oh, let me see . . . maybe the fact that he was an asshole?" He closes his eyes and wishes he was a thousand miles away, flying (_fleeing_) down the highway on his bike, thinking of nothing and no one.

"What made him an asshole?"

He rests his hands on the mantel. they are shaking, but he manages to hide it by gripping the ledge hard enough to whiten his knuckles. "I don't want to talk about it."

"My dad was an alcoholic, among other things," Sarah says. "He was inventively cruel when he was drunk. One night he got out a hunting rifle, put it to Mom's head and kept it there until we did our chores to his satisfaction. I hated and feared him for making me scrub floors with an old toothbrush to keep my mother's brains from being blown out."

"He just would have made you clean that up too," he says.

"Yes, he would." He was half-joking; she isn't. A chill runs down his spine. Even his old man wasn't quite that bad.

"Oh my god," Amber moans. "I cannot _believe_ you're actually falling for this."

"My dad . . ." He hesitates. "He—he wasn't my biological father." He turns and faces her. The fire's heat is warm on his back. It feels good, even though his leg hurts like hell and his stomach is tied up in knots so tight he should be bent double. "I'm pretty sure he knew, but it was one of those things."

"A secret," she says. He nods but says nothing more. "You never overheard your parents talking, arguing about this?"

"My parents didn't argue," he says. "Dad told us what to do and we did it."

"He was a hardass," she says. He rolls his eyes.

"Duh. Jarhead turned Navy pilot instructor," he says, scornful now. "Total flyboy."

"So he applied military discipline to and pulled rank on his family." Her face is impassive, but he can see speculation in her eyes, along with something else—he's not sure what it is and doesn't want to know. "Part of that discipline can involve breaking down an individual's will by any means at hand, including calling them names, belittling their efforts, telling them they're useless, a waste of carbon."

He can say nothing to this. She looks down.

"Okay," she says. And that sets him off more than anything else she's said.

"Swell. You have me all figured out," he snarls, furious at her presumption. "My dad was a prick, he told me I was worthless and a waste of time but he didn't really mean it, and now I'm free."

"Oh, he meant it," she says very quietly. He pauses in mid-rant.

"What?"

"He meant every word, at least in the moment he said it. He had to, or you would have known he was lying just to get you going," she says. "You've got a very sensitive bullshit detector, Greg."

He didn't expect this. It feels like she's hit him in the solar plexus with the pointy end of a big stick. His leg is in hard spasm; he won't be able to stand much longer. "He--he really believed it?"

"I think so," she says. Silence falls, broken only by the crackle of the fire. He moves away from the hearth to the chair he'd claimed before and sits, rubbing his thigh to relieve the tight cramp. He feels a curious light-headedness, his thoughts whirling in some strange pattern he cannot perceive or put in order.

"The fact that he believed what he was saying only reinforced his apparent authenticity," she says after a time. "From Piaget to the latest studies, we're beginning to understand that children are hard-wired from birth to imitate and model the adults taking care of them. That includes wholesale trust and belief in what those adults say." She isn't looking at him. "How did your mother treat you when your father was present?"

"She . . ." He's still trying to wrap his mind around this revelation. Intellectually he knows, has known for years, what Sarah says is true. But some other part of him is learning it for the first time. "She didn't . . . contradict him, she didn't . . . intervene."

"She strengthened his believability by not protecting you," Sarah says. He shakes his head.

"It wasn't a question of protection. Dad took care of discipline."

"What if she knew you were being wronged? Did she speak up for you, defend you, try to minimize your punishment?"

"Don't blame this on her," he says, roused to anger. "She couldn't do anything!"

"Why not? Mothers protect their babies at any cost," Sarah says.

"She was unfaithful to him," he says. "She had no say in anything because he never let her forget what she did."

"But you said you didn't hear them argue about the affair," Sarah says. He shakes his head.

"It was always there between them, even when they seemed close. I didn't understand that until I was older."

"So your father used his strength to exploit natural human vulnerabilities and force both of you into a position of complete subservience," she says. He laughs, a bitter sound.

"It didn't work with me."

"I bet it didn't." She gives him a small smile. "Good for you."

"God, she is _playing_ you," Amber says, her words freighted with urgency. "Don't fall for it, come on! You're smarter than this!"

He shouldn't be surprised by what Sarah's said, but he is. He blurts out "You're not supposed to say things like that."

"I say what I mean." She stands up. "If you're going to the game with Gene take a jacket from the coat rack, it'll be frosty tonight. I'm staying home." With that she leaves him sitting in the shadowed living room, staring into the dying fire.


	18. Chapter 18

_(A/N: yes, it is a hackneyed literary device to have rain symbolize change. It still works, though. --B)_

October 10th

Saturday dawns cool and blustery. He lies in bed for a while, watching grey light creep into his room. It should be depressing. Instead he feels lazy and content, snuggled under his warm comforter. Everyone else seems to have the same idea; the house is silent, with only the hot-air vents making noise as the furnace kicks on. He listens for footsteps and ends up dozing, the ever-present pain in his thigh waking him occasionally when he changes position.

It is well after eleven by the time he gets up, his rumbling belly driving him to the kitchen in search of food. There's plenty of leftover pizza in the fridge, along with an enormous vat of applesauce; that would explain why the house smelled like pie when they came home from the game. Sarah must have spent the evening cooking. _Cheap therapy_, he thinks, and pushes away the guilt his thought engenders. He puts two slices of extra pepperoni and cheese in the microwave while he sets up the coffeemaker.

He is almost done with his makeshift breakfast when someone knocks at the front door. He pauses with a remnant of crust halfway to his mouth. The knock sounds again—firm but not loud, insistent. He abandons the crust and limps to the door, unhurried. When he opens it a young guy stands there, briefcase in hand, sleek overnight bag at his feet. He is dressed in charcoal grey silk suit and white linen shirt, everything a bit wrinkled, tie going limp; behind him in the driveway is a rental car. He's obviously been traveling for some time. Greg gives him the onceover. The kid does the same, a confused expression stealing across his face. It makes him seem even younger, if that's possible.

"Um—I'm looking for Gene and Sarah Goldman," he says, his words hesitant.

Greg wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and belches. "We're all socialist Satanic baby-eaters here," he growls. "Stop leaving those goddamn pamphlets on the doorstep and hit the road." He closes the door in the kid's face and turns around to almost run down Sarah, who is standing directly behind him. She is watching him with arms folded, one brow raised.

"He's not a missionary," she says, her tone dry.

"I know," Greg says. "He's the consultant your hubby's bringing in." He smirks as a knock sounds at the door once more. "Persistent. I like that." He heads into the kitchen to finish his breakfast.

A short time later they are all gathered in the main room. The kid has changed out of the suit and now wears a ripped up black hoodie, jeans and disreputable-looking socks, one of which has a large hole in the heel. He is scarfing down pizza, alternating huge gulping bites with cold Coke. Sarah shakes her head at him.

"You'll get a bellyache," she says. "Don't you ever eat when they let you out of your cage?"

"Puddle hoppers don't have food," the kid says, and dumps half a bottle of soda down his gullet. "Came straight up from DC, the commuter flights out of Reagan suck but nothing else was available." He looks at Greg. "You must be Doctor House," he says.

"I must be," Greg says. The kid nods.

"Dude," he says equably. "Missionaries don't wear Armani, y'know."

"Everyone's a critic," Greg says. He glances at Gene. "No one introduced us. I guess rednecks expect everyone else to be related by intermarriage too." Gene snorts and folds his hands across his middle, unfazed by the insult.

"We thought you'd have more fun getting that information yourself," he says. Greg turns his stare from Gene to the kid.

"Well?" he says, impatient now.

"Will Reynard," the kid says, and wipes his hands down the front of his hoodie. Sarah covers her eyes.

"As God is my witness," she groans, and Will grins at her.

"Sorry." He strips off the jacket to reveal a faded Fugazi tee shirt and gets up to take the soiled clothing to the kitchen, presumably leaving it in the hamper by the utility closet. When he returns he has another Coke.

"Okay," he says once he is ensconced on the couch again, "what's the straight dope?"

Sarah rises from her chair. "Before you go any further, Greg should decide if he wants me to stay. This is pain management, not—"

"Oh, siddown," Greg says, glaring at her. "You and the pirate would just consult behind my back if I told you to leave, so stop making a big deal out of it."

She doesn't sit. "I won't go behind your back, and neither will Gene. Now, do you really want me to stay?"

He considers her words. He doesn't really care if she stays or goes, but he feels a need to test her. "No."

Sarah nods. "See you later." She leaves the room, taking a jacket from the coat rack. Once the door closes behind her Gene glances at Greg, his dark eyes glinting.

"She means it, you know," he says.

"Yeah, 'cause you both do that for all your widdle patients," Greg says.

"For the ones that are compos mentis, yes," Gene says. He tilts his head. "You're telling me you're not? I don't think it works that way."

Greg can't help it, he has to laugh. "Right," he says. "So what do you and Junior here have in mind?"

Two hours later they have a basic plan worked out. It's a direction he wouldn't have thought viable but that's what specialist consultants are for, even if they're hiring them straight out of preschool nowadays. Still, the kid has chops.

_("We'll need a new MRI and triple phase bone scan as well as a full lab panel and EMG, for starters. That should confirm my initial diagnosis of reflex sympathetic dystrophy."_

"_Cytokine damage and substantial muscle loss doesn't equal RSD," Greg says. The kid shrugs._

"_No, but the surgery could have triggered it, or it was exacerbated by later trauma. In a small number of cases there is no apparent cause, it just happens. You've got plenty of cause, though." He gives Greg a considering look. "You appear to be in the atrophic stage accompanied by acute unrelenting pain, muscle spasms and some signs of motor dysfunction, as well as possible bone and non-surgical muscle loss in the affected area. Gene and I concur that until the test results come in, your best bet is to continue treating symptoms with pregabalin and clonazepam." The kid leans forward. "But once we've got new data, we can pull out the big guns. Several of my patients have a TENS unit, a spinal cord stimulator. It's used in combination with antidepressants. The results typically range from mild to moderate pain reduction. Another option would be a nerve block."_

"_Temporary solution," Greg says._

"_Yeah, but if you respond well you'd be a good candidate for a sympathectomy. I've performed over thirty surgeries to date." He's not bragging, just stating a fact. "Typical results are moderate to full permanent reduction of pain." He sits back. "There is a risk." _

"_It could make things worse," Greg says. The thought terrifies him. He will not survive 'worse'._

"_So we'll keep it as a last option." The kid props his feet on the coffee table. "Tests first. Gene and I will get things scheduled. All you have to do is show up."_

_Greg thinks of the hours of discomfort and tedium ahead. "Since the guy I hired to take my tests is writing an article for Guinea Pig's latest issue, I'll be there," he says.)_

The meeting has adjourned to the kitchen, where the last of the pizza is being dispatched by the kid. Greg glances out a window and sees Sarah. She is sitting astride an enormous black horse. As he watches she moves her knee, pressing it lightly into the animal's side. They turn and head off across the field at a leisurely pace. She rides with an ease he envies, back straight, heels down.

"That's Blackie," Gene says. He is standing next to Greg, also watching Sarah.

"Weird nickname for your wife," Greg says. "How'd she get it? Enquiring minds want to know."

"Horses have names too," Gene says. "Even if it is a temporary one, like 'you bastard'."

Greg snorts. "She's safe on that thing?"

"Sarah's been riding since before she was able to walk," Gene says. "Comes with being a hick from the sticks." He turns away. "Hope she gets back before it rains."

"How do you know it's going to rain?" Greg peers at the dark clouds racing overhead. "It's been like this all summer."

"I just know," Gene says, and walks away. Ten minutes later he is proven right; the first fat drops hit the windowpane, followed by many more. Greg sits down to watch as the storm grows, blowing colored leaves across the lawn and into the weeds at the fenceline. Gusty winds push sheets of rain along, drenching everything in sight—including Sarah. She comes running over the field, a small figure half-veiled by the lowering dark and swirling bunches of flotsam. After a few moments the back door bangs open and she comes into the mud room, her auburn hair plastered to her head.

"Wooo!" she says, and shakes like a dog. Greg can't help but smile. "It's comin' down in buckets out there!" She peels off her muddy boots and leaves them on a mat by the door.

"You look like a drowned rat," he says. She grins at him, water dripping from the end of her nose.

"Flattery will get you everywhere with some other girl," she says as she takes off her sodden jacket, hangs it up and comes into the kitchen. She tears a paper towel from the holder on the counter and wanders over next to him, blotting her face and hair. She smells of rain and horse and saddle leather. "Everything go okay?"

Her concern is genuine, he can sense it; normally that would be enough to make him put up the usual barriers, but for some strange reason he can't. Truth be told, he doesn't want to. Just for this moment, he's tired of keeping everyone at arm's length. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, it went okay."

"I'm glad." She hesitates. "May I touch you?" she asks. He considers it, gives a reluctant nod and looks away. Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder, the same butterfly lightness he remembers from their meeting in the exercise yard. He flinches, but she doesn't grip or squeeze him. Slowly his tension dissipates under her gentle touch. Her fingers are small and cold, fragile. Still, they offer human presence, an anchor in the maelstrom of terror and exhilaration possibility has created in his mind. Even more astonishing, after all his cruel jabs at her she is willing to give him comfort. He won't ever admit it, but he is humbled by and grateful for her compassion.

"It doesn't seem so now, but things will get better." Her soft voice holds just a hint of a smile. "I could use another pair of hands in the kitchen. Wanna help with dinner?"


	19. Chapter 19

_(A/N: this one is short, I know. It came from a dream I had after writing chapter 18. I needed some clarity on where to go with the story, and got it in this little scene. --B)_

It is an hour or two after dinner. He is sitting in a very comfortable easy chair in a corner of the big room, a cold bottle of Yuengling lager in his hand. Now and then he takes a swallow of beer, enjoying the rich, clean bite of hops and barley malt. It's been over four months since he's had a brew; it might be another year before he tastes one again.

The others are gathered around the fireplace, chairs drawn into a loose, open semi-circle. Gene has a battered old mandolin and a slide guitar, a beautiful instrument made of Hawaiian koa wood; Sarah's playing the Martin, and the kid has a Gibson dreadnought. It's a back-porch style picking session, relaxed and easy. They're decent musicians with good voices, able to sing harmony and keep time. Sarah has a soft clear alto, nothing spectacular, but pleasing all the same. She is saying something to the kid that evokes laughter. She laughs too, cradling the guitar against her with gentle hands. Greg remembers the feel of her slight fingers on his shoulder. He pushes the memory away and settles deeper into the chair.

He has chosen not to participate, though both Gene and Sarah asked him to join in. They came to him separately and in private—very thoughtful, making sure he wouldn't feel pressured to comply. He is fairly sure they believe he's afraid to play in front of them, though nothing could be further from the truth. He's participated in plenty of sessions over the years, both casual and formal. He's even hosted a few himself, before the infarction. Part of him longs to pick up an instrument and take a seat in their circle. He hasn't made music at all, not since Amber—he winces away from the knowledge and brings his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

What keeps him in the shadows is a growing sense of apprehension. For months he's stagnated at Mayfield, his life put on hold. Now in a single weekend he's rushing forward into something for which he's not sure he's ready. It feels as if he has no more control over what's happening than he does when he's in lockdown. For once his intellect and emotions are in agreement. Both are telling him to back away. Change inevitably means pain. He cannot trust these well-meaning people, though he knows they truly want to help him. Other people have tried to help . . . He rubs his thigh and takes another swallow of beer.

So he decides on a plan of sabotage. Because that's what he has to do to save himself, he knows it now; his course of action is becoming clear. Better to trash proceedings before his armor is stripped away and he's left naked and defenseless, without even a pile of dead leaves to cover his inadequacy. Oh, he'll keep the surgery options; it's the therapy he wants to ditch. A part of him feels shame at this decision. Wilson will never forgive him, and it's very likely going to make getting his license back that much more difficult. Still, with some dissembling and a different psychiatrist he can fake his way through and return to work—the one thing he _knows_ he can do, the one thing they all demand from him.

"Very wise," Amber's soft voice whispers at the back of his mind. "Everyone hurts you, in the end. I should know, don't you think?"

He finishes off his beer and watches the life he'll never have, played out in light and darkness, just beyond reach.


	20. Chapter 20

October 11th

It is just past 2 a.m. when Greg hears someone on the stairs. He is sitting in front of the fireplace, Gene's sweet honey of a slide guitar in his hands as he watches the embers of the dying fire. He has been playing for about half an hour now, wondering if the bait he's offering will be taken. Now he sees Sarah claim the seat on his left, and hides a smirk. _Shrinks are all predictable_, he thinks. _Can't resist the urge to fix things_. It's the opening salvo in his battle for freedom. Maybe he's tipping his hand by starting this soon but then again, no time like the present.

"Having trouble sleeping?" Sarah says, concern in her quiet voice.

"Nope." He sits back, noodling a tune he's been working on in his head for a couple of weeks now. "Thought I'd give you a chance to follow up on the big breakthrough we had earlier. I know you're dying to help me find closure."

She says nothing for a few moments. He keeps his gaze focused on the fire.

"You were faking?" Her voice is calm. He expects nothing less. She's certainly not going to freak out on him first thing. It wouldn't be professional.

"Well, yeah." He gives the words a slightly sarcastic, condescending edge, a certain tone of voice he knows pisses people off.

"So why bring me down here in the middle of the night? This couldn't wait until morning?" She sounds curious, not upset. He chances a sidelong look at her. She is bundled in a shabby blue bathrobe, her hands slipped into the sleeves. In the faint rippling light she looks tired but her expression is impassive, giving nothing away.

"Avoiding the Christmas rush," he says. He has to impress upon her from the start that he is in control, which includes making her get up at all hours to find out she's been duped.

"Ah," she says, and falls silent. He keeps on fitting chords to the melody, expecting her to start probing. After an awkward silence she gets up. "Okay. See you later on."

He stops playing. "That's it?"

"There doesn't seem to be much point in my staying." She sounds reasonable, not angry. He decides to push a little harder.

"You're not gonna give me one more try? Tough nut to crack and all that, so to speak." He picks up the tune again.

"I'll ask one question, if I may," she says. He makes a noncommittal noise and waits with inward glee for her to reveal the chink in her armor that will give him the advantage he needs to win. "Why do you think we asked you here this weekend?"

"Already told you twice," he says. "I stand by my facts and the conclusion drawn from them."

"You're entitled to your opinion," she says. "I hoped you would be more comfortable here, to feel like you could open up in a less regimented and rigid atmosphere--"

"You said 'rigid'," he snickers, interrupting her. To his chagrin she flashes a smile at him. Of course she gets the reference and isn't annoyed; she's used to minor zingers. _Older brothers,_ he reminds himself.

"It is a word that suits you," she says, and he hears a hint of humor in her voice. "But that's neither here nor there. We also wanted you to see first-hand a life that offers a chance for renewal. As Gene said, we deal intimately with people in misery every day. It takes a toll on us. We need time away. You can create that for yourself, if you want it."

"I have everything I need," he says. "Or I will, once the kid works on my leg."

Sarah sits on the arm of the chair. "It's not that simple, you know."

"What I know is _you_ can't resist the urge to fix me," he says, triumphant. She bows her head. He thinks it might be acknowledgment, but he's not sure.

"Some of the pain you feel is physical in origin," she says quietly. "Some of it isn't."

"Bullshit." He picks an intricate chord. "If you're going to indulge in psychobabble about repressed feelings manifesting--"

"It's not psychobabble," she says, lifting her head. He avoids her gaze. "The human mind has an amazing number of coping mechanisms in the face of unrelenting distress, but you can only push the pain deep inside for so long before it has to come out somehow." She smiles a little. "Like overstuffing a teddy bear. Eventually the seams give and cotton leaks all over the place."

_Good metaphor, but I'm not some dorky little plush animal._ "So now you're saying any attempt to repair damage won't stick unless I let you shrink my head?"

"If you don't find a doctor who can help you, corrections to the physical problem will be compromised." She is still looking at him. "Remember what happened with the ketamine treatment. It should have worked."

"It did!" He shoots a glare at her.

"For a while, until the unresolved emotional injuries surfaced." She stands up. He prepares his ammunition and lets fly.

"I'm just loving all this talk about 'unresolved emotional injuries' because you're loaded with 'em," he says.

"What?" She looks genuinely confused. He feels a fleeting admiration for her ability to playact.

"During your kumbaya around the campfire earlier this evening, the songs you chose were a total copout," he says. He picks a harmonic, taps it gently. "You were the one who dictated the terms of the session at the start. You said the songs had to reveal the player's current emotional standing, but none of your own choices did. Naughty, naughty. You have to walk your walk, Doctor."

She considers his words. He can almost see the wheels turning.

"You're right," she says after a few moments. "Thanks for pointing it out to me. Let's try this: you agree to one more session on Wednesday, and at the end of it I'll play you a song that truly reveals my emotional state as it stands that day. You have my promise. If you still feel I'm not satisfactory, I'll refer you to someone else."

He chuckles, secure now in his eventual victory. "Desperation rears its red-haired head."

"I don't give up easily," she says.

"Okay." He is already planning what he'll do during their hour together. The possibilities for entertainment are endless. He might as well have a little fun while he destroys their relationship. Maybe it'll cover the guilt he's already working hard to ignore. "If I don't like the song, not only do I get another doctor, you have to apologize for wasting my time."

To his delight, he's scored a direct hit. Her eyes narrow and a flush creeps into her cheeks. She looks annoyed and embarrassed at the same time.

"Done," she says after a few moments of obvious internal struggle. He can barely hear her above the soft chords he's playing. Without further speech she walks away and climbs the stairs. Her shoulders are stiff under the soft terrycloth of her robe. He finishes his song, content. All is right with the world; once again he's proven Gregory House can still come out on top of a beautiful woman.


	21. Chapter 21

_A/N: I know the ending for this chapter is a bit abrupt, but my muses wanted it that way. All will be revealed . . . eventually. :) --B_

Gene pulled the van into the driveway and set the parking brake before turning off the engine. Beside him Sarah stirred.

"Home," he said. A gust of wind and rain hit the windshield. "You grab the bags, I'll get the cases and the cooler."

By the time they made it inside both of them were soaked. Sarah found the hall light switch and flipped it on. She was shivering, her face pale above the dark fabric of her jacket. Gene took the overnight bags from her.

"Why don't you go warm up in the shower?" he said quietly. "I'll put stuff away."

Sarah nodded and moved down the hallway. She hadn't spoken since they'd dropped House off at Mayfield; she'd escorted him to the rear delivery entrance where an orderly waited, then returned to the van in grim silence. Gene didn't think they'd argued or had words, but _something_ had happened. He hoped she would tell him about it. When she went quiet like this it was hard as hell to get her to open up.

He thought about the weekend while he hung their jackets in the utility room to dry out and put the instruments in the spare bedroom. As far as he could tell it had been a good three days for everyone concerned. Sunday afternoon he, Will and House had watched the Eagles play Tampa while Sarah visited a neighbor. He'd thought at the time it was unusual behavior on her part. Not that she was a huge football fan, but she found it a handy excuse to cuddle with him on the couch and rarely passed up an opportunity to indulge.

_She was pretty quiet all day Sunday_. He dumped dirty clothes on top of the washer and took the cooler into the kitchen. _Whatever went down must have happened between Saturday evening and Sunday morning before breakfast. _He had a vague memory of Sarah leaving sometime in the night, but he couldn't remember how long she'd been gone. _She told me House was up late Friday playing music because he couldn't sleep. If he did the same thing after the session . . . _Gene frowned. Sarah would have heard the guitar, gone down to investigate. _And then what? Maybe he hit on her. Maybe he said something . . . did something . . . _It didn't make sense. He'd always had the impression House saw most attractive women as fair game, but was all talk and little or no action. Gene hoped that was still true, or it was likely he'd end up in the Director's office trying to explain why he'd beaten one of Sarah's patients into a bloody pulp.

He opened the cooler and put leftover sodas and teas into the fridge, considering his options as he worked. He would see how things went tonight. She would tell him if something hinky had gone on, of that he was certain. He was under no illusions about his wife harboring secrets; he had a few of his own, nothing heinous but also nothing he wanted the world to know about. Still, they'd built trust between them through their years together, hard-won and carefully nurtured. That bond would help him find out what had happened, and do whatever he could to make things right.

A short time later he sat on the edge of the bed and watched his wife wrestle with her hair. She yanked the brush through tangled curls, knuckles white with effort. He winced. If he ever savaged his own scalp that way he'd have a bald patch the size of a dinner plate.

"Let me do it," he said, and held out his hand. Sarah glared at him, then slapped the brush into his palm. She got up and sat at his feet though, so he knew she wasn't really mad at him. He ignored the sense of relief this knowledge engendered—he'd been a bit worried _he_ was somehow the source of her annoyance—and set to work. With care he slid the brush through the ends, a fleeting memory of watching his older sister getting ready for a date flickering in his mind's eye. He'd always secretly admired her skill in rolling thick dark locks around pop cans to get the smooth flip then in fashion. Of course it had been a matter of principle to steal those cans for use in target practice . . . _She almost took off my hide when she found them all shot up. _He suppressed a grin as he recalled his quick exit to the haymow, where he'd stayed hidden for the rest of the day.

"So," he said, bringing his thoughts back to the present, "what happened?" He kept his voice calm, mildly curious. Sarah said nothing, but her back pressed against his legs a bit more. She wasn't ready to talk, not just yet. "Okay," he said, and continued his task.

It wasn't until they were in bed snuggled under the quilt together that she said "I—I think . . ."

He waited, holding her close without comment. When Sarah spoke again, her voice was thick with unshed tears.

"I think I lost another patient."


	22. Chapter 22

_A/N: I do not own the song or the performance of 'Urge For Going'. _

_This is the end of Treatment. There is a sequel coming shortly, I've started writing it already. Thanks for reading and reviewing, it's much appreciated :) --B_

October 14th

It is the end of his last session with the House Whisperer. It's been quite an intriguing experience, at least for him. He walked in ten minutes past his start time to find a complete change of scenery in her office. Gone are the bland colors, the cool, static neutrality of simple lines. The walls are now a soft cornflower blue, the trim around doors and windows creamy white; the smell of fresh paint still lingers. Images from the Hubble telescope hang in place of the boring botanical prints. A wandering-jew plant graces a corner of her desk and a woven-reed bowl full of apples sits on a low table beside his chair, along with the inevitable box of tissues. Pottery lamps with simple paper shades shed mellow light here and there, dispelling the grey day outside. Classical music plays quietly from a small radio placed atop a corner bookshelf. Her Martin six-string stands in its case propped against the shelves. The atmosphere is no longer clinical; it's comfortable and welcoming. She's brought the ease of her home in the country to her practice in town.

The office isn't the only makeover. Sarah wears a thick cable-knit sweater of teal blue and a pair of rust-brown slacks, her auburn hair tied back with a leather thong. It's a huge change from her usual workplace camouflage, and the difference is amazing. She looks vibrant and alive and open; he's reminded that he's come to like her very much despite his best efforts to the contrary. He wishes she hadn't done any of this. It will make his plan that much harder to enact.

"When you pointed out how I avoided my emotions during the Saturday night session, it got me thinking," she says as he wanders behind her desk, inspecting the Hubble photographs. "I've hidden too much of myself away, especially here at work. So I decided to give being the real me a try." She smiles at him, dimple flashing. "Thanks for what you said. I appreciate your honesty." She gestures around the room. "What do you think?"

_I'm thinking you're not quite sure of my reaction so you're a little nervous. Good to know. _He stops in front of a picture of an exploding nebula. It looks like a butterfly, fragile and bright. "Maintenance did all this in two days? And Admin's okay with it?"

"Gene and I worked up everything ourselves. We both took a sick day Monday and spent it in here," she says. "A friend of mine at the Goddard lab in Maryland sent me the images. Everything else is stuff from our apartment, with a trip to the thrift store for the lamps and the bookshelf."

He gives the nebula a final glance. "That one's upside down," he says, and limps to his seat.

So he's spent their final hour together being an absolute ass. He has mocked her, made fun of her process, reminded her of her country-bumpkin background and abusive childhood, needled her about her physical faults. Throughout the proceedings he's watched her closely for any sign of weakness—unshed tears, trembling hands, hesitant speech. None has been forthcoming. She is as impassive and cool as during their first sessions together. She fields his cruelty with calm, insightful questions that make him flinch. She neither talks down to him nor gives him false encouragement. She treats him with respect despite everything he throws at her, and it makes him ashamed of himself. Anyway, he should have known she would anticipate his plan to some extent; she's not an idiot.

Still, at the end of their time he says "You owe me a song." When she rises to get the guitar he sits back, rubbing his aching thigh. It's hurting like hell today. "Uh uh. Not here. I want you to sing to me in the common room."

She hesitates. He sees it and waits for a sense of triumph to manifest, but all he feels is guilt, and an odd sense of sadness.

"Okay," she says. She takes up the Martin and goes to the door. He limps after her, shoving away reluctance with an iron hand. He _has _to do this, it's simple self-preservation.

Ten minutes later they are sitting in the common room. There are patients grouped around them, waiting for her to begin. He sits in front of her, sprawled in a chair with arms folded as she tunes the guitar with care. When she's finished she sits very straight, holding the instrument in her small hands.

"Greg asked me to sing a song about how I'm feeling right now," she says. "I've chosen one, but it needs some explanation first.

"When I was a teenager I was sent to live with my grandma Corbett. She was very strict and had a lot of rules. Sometimes I broke those rules on purpose." She smiles a little at the giggles and comments this confession brings. "My punishment was to sleep on the front porch. In the summertime it wasn't so bad, but when the cold came on, it was tough. Oklahoma doesn't have a lot of snow in the wintertime like you do here, but it does get very cold and windy, and sometimes there are bad ice storms. I have a hard time with cold weather because of those old memories. Winter scares me deep inside. I always wish I could fly away before the first snowflakes fall. Someone wrote a song about that feeling. I'm going to sing it for you now."

She picks the opening chord and begins Joni Mitchell's 'Urge for Going'. She's moved it into a lower key to accommodate her clear, gentle alto voice. He listens to her sing and sees a young girl curled up on an old sagging couch in an unheated closed-in porch, shivering under a thin blanket as the wind whines and scratches at the rusty screens. _I hope it was a closed porch, _he thinks_. _He cannot bear the idea of her left out in the open on a January night. The memory of dry dead leaves against his bare skin flashes through his mind.

_See the geese in chevron flight, flappin' and a-racin' on before the snow _

_They've got the urge for going, and they've got the wings so they can go . . ._

At the end there's a little scattering of applause. A few people come up to touch the guitar or chatter at Sarah. She deals with them the same way she does him: she offers respect, humor and patience. Eventually everyone wanders off to watch tv or play a game.

"So let me get this straight," Greg says finally. "You hate winter, so you and the pirate bought a place in upstate New York? And that's where you're gonna retire?"

"I don't want this fear to rule me any longer," Sarah says. "I made a promise to Gene to build a snowman with him." She stops. A wry smile curves her lips. "That sounds so stupid when I say it out loud."

"Jesus." Greg passes a hand over his eyes. "My blood sugar's climbing by the second. You think you have to work on every single fucking character flaw you own or something."

"I'm not looking for perfection," she says. "You're the one with that particular obsession." She tilts her head a little, looking at him. "So?"

Here it is, the moment he's been working for. He leans back in his hard, uncomfortable chair and gives her a cold stare.

"Apologize," he says, drawing out the word to savor it. "Make it sincere and original. This will count for eighty per cent of your final grade. Offers of oral sex will be taken into consideration, but you can just show me your tits if you're not feeling ambitious."

She gets to her feet, looking down at him. After a moment she says "I'm sorry I wasted your time. I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm sorry I let you down. I'll get you a referral by the end of lunch today." She pauses. "Good luck with the surgery, Greg. I hope you find healing." For the first time he sees her eyes are glittering with tears—she's crying for him, not her. "Please take care of yourself," she says softly, and walks away. She doesn't look back.


End file.
